The urinary system consists of kidneys, bladder (urinary bladder), ureters, and urethra. Urinary disorders like infections, stones, and growths like cancer present with many symptoms. These disorders mainly present with pain in the flanks and back, burning during urination, nausea, swelling, blood in urine, etc. Infections of the urinary tract present with fever usually. Out of these symptoms, blood in urine is the most frightening, but many times simple, treatable infections can cause blood in urine.
 

Medically, blood in urine is known as hematuria. Blood in urine may be due to various conditions of the kidneys, bladder, ureter, urethra, or nearby glands, and cancer is one of them. These cases should be evaluated to understand the root cause of the problem. Blood in urine can come anywhere from the kidneys, bladder, ureters, urethra, or prostate gland.
Cancer of kidney and urinary bladder, as suspected, are not common causes of this symptom.

Bladder infection, medically known as cystitis, is the commonest cause of blood in urine.

The person may have fever, pain, and burning feeling during urination, along with blood in urine. Infections of kidney, known as pyelonephritis, may also cause blood in urine along with fever and burning sensation. Another kidney disease associated with blood in urine is cystic kidney disease. Kidney stones also cause blood in urine associated with severe pain.

Cancer in the kidney, whether primary or secondary, may cause hematuria. Bladder stone and bladder cancer in the same person can cause blood in urine. Any tumor in the kidneys, bladder, or prostate gland may also present with blood in urine symptom. Infections of prostate gland known as prostatitis are also linked with this problem.
 

Apart from these infections and diseases, any internal injury in the kidneys, urinary bladder, or ureter may cause blood in urine. Infection in urethra (urethritis) can also cause the symptom. Cancer in ureter and prostate gland also present with the symptom of blood in urine.
 

Often blood in urine is detected on routine urine examination. If traces of blood are found in the urine then further evaluation for this problem is done. The person is generally recommended ultrasound, urine analysis, cystoscopy, intravenous pyelogram, X-ray, etc. to rule out many of the diseases. CT Scans and MRI studies are needed if some growths like cancer are suspected. Most of the time, the underlying cause is only a urinary infection, but in some cases, cancers of any part of urinary tract or even no cause is detected.