• There is also an accompanying lymphocytic infiltrate.

• This bladder biopsy was from a patient being treated with BCG for bladder carcinoma.

•Intravesical BCG therapy for transitional cell carcinoma.

•BCG is an attenuated live acid fast bacilli which like other mycobacteria will incite a granulomatous tissue reaction.

•The organisms do not reproduce but the antigens elicit an immune response which eradicates the neoplastic cells.

•Since BCG is used in bladder carcinomas as therapy, the epidemiology of cases will be that of bladder carcinomas.

•The clinical features will be dependent on the carcinoma present.

•Rarely organisms reproduce and actually cause mycobacterial disease.

•BCG is used in the treatment of some bladder carcinomas.

•The gross appearance of cases will be dominated by the carcinoma that is present rather than by the effect of BCG therapy.

•The mucosa of the urinary bladder shows granulomatous inflammation.

•Urological Pathology. Murphy WM (ed). Philadelphia: Saunders, 1989, p. 100.

• Current literature from PubMed at National Library of Medicine