In the investigation of blood in the urine, the doctor images the whole of the urinary tubes and passages. An intravenous urogram is performed first, 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). The critical diagnostic test (and indeed the first therapy as resection (surgically removed) of all visible disease is performed at the same time) is cystoscopy.
Here, the specialist (urologist) looks into the bladder of the patient and resects (surgically removes) any tumour that he can see, sending the specimens that he resects to the pathology laboratory for examination under the microscope.
