AILSA CHANG, HOST:
University of Colorado football coach Deion Sanders has a brand new bladder. It's called a neobladder, and it's made from his small intestine. The two-time Super Bowl champion recently underwent reconstructive surgery to treat an aggressive form of bladder cancer. Health reporter Sarah Boden has a report on this procedure.
SARAH BODEN: To build a new bladder, a surgeon takes about a foot and a half of the small intestine and then cuts it down one side so it lays flat like a sheet. Then they fold it in half, top to bottom, and then connect the back part to the front, hook it up to the kidneys and urethra, and then you have a whole new organ.
JANET KUKREJA: The human body is amazing.
BODEN: Dr. Janet Kukreja is director of urolic oncology at the University of Colorado Cancer Center. She performed Sanders' surgery after a cancerous tumor was discovered this spring. Kukreja says one cool thing about neobladder reconstruction is a patient's immune system doesn't reject the new organ because it's made from their own tissue.
KUKREJA: So then they don't have to take immunosuppression.
BODEN: Theoretically, if you transplanted someone else's bladder, the patient would have to take these medications. Also, a plastic bladder won't work either.
KUKREJA: And anything in the urinary tract has to be their own tissue. Otherwise, calcium builds up on it, and people get stones.
BODEN: Now, a reconstructed bladder doesn't function exactly like someone's original bladder. For example, it can't send signals to the brain to let you know when you need to use the toilet. Dr. Jodi Maranchie is a surgical urolic oncologist at UPMC in Pittsburgh, and she says, this isn't a big deal during the day.
JODI MARANCHIE: They're able to hold the urine in when they're awake and alert.
BODEN: It's more of a problem at night. During a Monday press conference, Sanders acknowledged this drawback. He joked that, like his 1-year-old grandson, he now depends on Depends. It just takes time to relearn how to use the bathroom with a new bladder.
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DEION SANDERS: And I know there's a lot of people out there going through what I'm going through and dealing with what I'm dealing with. And let's stop being ashamed of it.
BODEN: An estimated 85,000 people in the U.S. will get bladder cancer this year. About 1 in 5 of those patients will die.
MARANCHIE: About two-thirds of bladder cancer patients are men, but women tend to present with more advanced and slightly more aggressive disease.
BODEN: Maranchie says the main sign that something is wrong is blood in the urine. But Sanders said that wasn't the case for him. His tumor was found during an annual checkup, and that saved his life.
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SANDERS: But please, get yourself checked out.
BODEN: And because he did go to the doctor, he's alive and back to coaching. For NPR News, I'm Sarah Boden.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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