Abstract Background The pathological diagnosis of bladder cancer workup relies on cystoscopy, however, due to sampling restriction, the depth of local invasion is often understaged. Methods A total of 386 patients with bladder urothelial carcinoma underwent follow-up. The data collected included age, sex, tumor size, surgical options, histologic grade, invasive depth, lymph node metastasis, and oncological outcomes, and the patients were divided into coral-like and crumb-like groups. These data were analyzed with the chi-square test, binary logistic regression, Kaplan–Meier analysis, univariable and multivariable logistic regression and Spearman correlation test. Results Bladder tumor morphology was moderately correlated with invasion depth (ρ = 0.492, p