New treatment options in advanced bladder cancer

Abstract

In a multicentre phase 3 trial of 360 patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer, British researchers compared radiation therapy alone against radiation and synchronous chemotherapy with fluorouracil and mitomycin C and found that patients given the combination lived longer than did those on radiation alone. Moreover, patients assigned to combination therapy lived as long as did historical controls who had cystectomy, the gold standard. At 2 years, rates of locoregional disease-free survival were 67% for combination therapy and 54% for patients receiving radiation alone, and at 5 years, overall survival was 48% versus 35%, respectively.