In the investigation of blood in the urine, the doctor images the whole of the urinary tubes and passages. An intravenous urogram is therefore first performed as this will show obvious intraluminal disease at one or more sites (and it is not uncommon for there to be more than one site). Then the critical diagnostic test and, indeed the first therapy which is performed at the same time, is cystoscopy. Here, the specialist (urologist) looks into the bladder of the anaesthetised patient and resects any tumour that he can see, sending the specimens that he resects to the pathology laboratory for examination under the microscope.
