Is bcg treatment for bladder cancer the same as chemotherapy?

No: Treatment with BCG is a form of localized immunotherapy for bladder cancer but it is not chemotherapy. It involves placement of a medicine into the bladder that helps one's own immune system fight the cancer.

No: Bcg is a topical therapy that is essentially a type of immune based therapy applied only to bladder cells. Traditional chemotherapy is given intravenously and thus all body cells are exposed. Some chemotherapy drugs can be given topically like BCG and probably exert their effect via typical cancer cell-killing compared to immune stimulating effects of BCG similarly administered.