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Open Imaging Index
X-ray (computed radiography) CT X-ray MRI PET Urinary bladder

TCGA-BLCA

The Cancer Genome Atlas Urothelial Bladder Carcinoma Collection (TCGA-BLCA)

Clinical CT, MRI, PET and radiographs of patients with bladder cancer whose tumors were profiled by The Cancer Genome Atlas, so imaging can be linked to genomics and outcome. 120 patients.

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Overview

TCGA-BLCA is the imaging arm of The Cancer Genome Atlas project on urothelial bladder carcinoma, hosted by The Cancer Imaging Archive. It gathers clinical radiology of TCGA patients whose tumor tissue was profiled by TCGA. The patient IDs on the images match those in TCGA, so the scans can be joined with the clinical, genomic and histopathology data in the NCI Genomic Data Commons. This makes the collection a resource for radiogenomics, where imaging phenotypes are related to tumor genotype and patient outcome.

Composition

Version 8 holds 120 patients with 192 imaging studies, 1,051 DICOM series and 111,781 images (58.03 GB). CT dominates: 107 patients have CT, 20 have MRI, and 7 each have PET, computed radiography or digital radiography. Of the 120 patients, 32 have more than one study. By the DICOM headers, 71 patients are male, 18 female and 31 have no sex recorded. The 88 patients with a recorded age were 43 to 88 years old at their earliest archived study (median 68). The collection page links a TCGA clinical data snapshot from January 2016, and newer clinical and biomedical spreadsheets come from the Genomic Data Commons.

Acquisition

The images come from routine care at several institutions, not from a research protocol, so scanners, protocols and modalities vary widely. For each TCGA case the baseline imaging studies were taken before surgery. Most series cover the bladder region, with some labeled as abdomen or chest. The series were acquired on GE, Siemens, Philips and Toshiba scanners, and radiographs on Fujifilm and Agfa systems. Dates in the DICOM headers are shifted by a random offset that is fixed per site, which keeps intervals between a patient's studies.

Annotations

No image annotations or segmentations are part of the collection.

Known limitations

  • Imaging protocols are heterogeneous across sites, scanners and modalities.
  • Sex is missing for 31 patients and age for 32 patients in the DICOM headers.
  • Only a minority of patients have MRI, PET or radiographs.
  • TCIA and TCGA use different date schemes that are not reconciled.

Cohort

Aggregate numbers from the sources below. Bars are relative to the 120 subjects.

Sex

  • Female 18 15%
  • Male 71 59%
  • Unknown 31 26%

Metadata sheet, column Patient Sex in TCIA TCGA-BLCA series metadata digest, August 30 2019 manifest (CC BY 3.0, open download)

Modality

  • CT 107 89%
  • MRI 20 17%
  • PET 7 6%
  • X-ray (computed radiography) 7 6%
  • X-ray 7 6%

Metadata sheet, columns Patient ID and Modality in TCIA TCGA-BLCA series metadata digest, August 30 2019 manifest (CC BY 3.0, open download)

Age

mean 69 ± 10.1, median 68, range 43 to 88

0
10
20
30
32
40-4950-5960-6970-7980-89

Metadata sheet, columns Patient Age and Study Date in TCIA TCGA-BLCA series metadata digest, August 30 2019 manifest (CC BY 3.0, open download)

Scanner vendor

  • GE HealthCare 60 50%
  • Siemens Healthineers 40 33%
  • Philips 26 22%
  • Canon Medical 9 8%
  • Other 6 5%
  • Agfa 1 <1%

Metadata sheet, column Manufacturer in TCIA TCGA-BLCA series metadata digest, August 30 2019 manifest (CC BY 3.0, open download)

License and access

Our reading of the license, not legal advice. Before you use the data, read the original license and confirm that your use is allowed. We take no responsibility for how you use a dataset. Full disclaimer

Access
Open download

Download without an account

Images download with the TCIA Data Retriever or from the NCI Imaging Data Commons. Clinical, genomic and histopathology data for the same patient IDs are in the NCI Genomic Data Commons project TCGA-BLCA; a clinical snapshot is an open download from the collection page.

Access page
For All CT, MR, PET, CR and DX images (120 subjects, 192 studies, 1,051 series).

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

Older version of CC BY. Use, share and adapt the data for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you credit the creators.

TCIA lists the images under CC BY 3.0. Users must also follow the TCIA Data Usage Policy, which says users must "Not use the requested datasets, either alone or in concert with any other information, to identify or contact individual participants" and must cite the dataset DOI (https://www.cancerimagingarchive.net/data-usage-policies-and-restrictions/). Publications are asked to acknowledge the TCGA Research Network.

Original license text Version read: 3.0 Checked 2026-10-07

What you can do

  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes

What you can share

  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes

What you must do

  • Yes
  • Share alike No
  • No
  • No
  • Manuscript review No
  • Release code No
  • Return results No
  • Delete after use No

Limits

  • No
  • Location limits No

Citation

Kirk S, Lee Y, Lucchesi FR, Aredes ND, Gruszauskas N, Catto J, Garcia K, Jarosz R, Duddalwar V, Varghese B, Rieger-Christ K, Lemmerman J. (2016). The Cancer Genome Atlas Urothelial Bladder Carcinoma Collection (TCGA-BLCA) (Version 8) [Data set]. The Cancer Imaging Archive. https://doi.org/10.7937/K9/TCIA.2016.8LNG8XDR

Sources

Every number on this page comes from one of these documents. Each chart names the table or page it is taken from. The raw numbers are in stats.csv.