About the Bladder

Your bladder is in the lower, front part of your abdomen. It is behind your pubic bone and in front of your rectum. The bladder is a balloon-like organ, with walls that are muscular, tough and very stretchable. It is a storage place for waste fluid (urine) as it moves from the kidneys out of your body.

Two tubes (called ureters) carry urine into your bladder from your kidneys. As the bladder fills, its walls stretch and sensors in the wall tissue trigger the need to urinate. Urine leaves the bladder, and the body, through a tube called the urethra. When there is a problem in the bladder, the flow of fluid waste leaving the body is disturbed.

The bladder wall is made up of four different layers:

• A protective, fatty covering
• A muscular shell
• A layer of connective tissue, full of small blood vessels and elastic fibers
• Lining cells that continue to reproduce throughout your life

Cancer tends to develop in the more rapidly developing cells of the inner lining.

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