Diet during clinical treatment

Maintaining an optimal nutritional status is an important goal for anyone undergoing clinical treatment for bladder cancer. Side-effects of treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy can include episodes of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue and generally loss of appetite, which can all impact on food and fluid intake and lead to weight loss and poor overall health status. The stronger and more nourished the patient is means that they can generally tolerate treatments better and improve their chances of achieving positive outcomes. This chapter provides dietary advice on how to maintain a healthy body weight, keep up energy levels by having adequate intakes of macronutrients such as protein and carbohydrates, and micronutrients like iron, as well as working around adverse side-effects so that they don’t compromise nutritional status.