The impact of peri-operative chemotherapy for patients with lymph node-positive urothelial cancer.

Abstract

388 Background: Patients with locally advanced urothelial cancer with regional lymph node involvement (LN+) have a poor prognosis. Surgical management of these patients is controversial and practice patterns vary. We evaluated the outcomes of patients with LN+ disease treated with pre-operative chemotherapy and cystectomy, cystectomy and post-operative chemotherapy, and chemotherapy alone. Methods: Patients with urothelial cancer with TxN1-3M0 disease treated with chemotherapy in Alberta from 2005 to 2015 were evaluated. Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were evaluated using Kaplan-Meier analysis. Cox regression analysis was performed to evaluate the impact of age, gender, T stage, and N stage on survival. Results: 184 patients with LN+ disease treated with chemotherapy were evaluable for outcomes; 42 underwent pre-operative chemotherapy (Group A), 92 underwent post-operative chemotherapy (Group B), and 50 received chemotherapy alone (Group C). The median age at diagnosis was 65 years (range 31-89) and most patients (83%) were male. The median follow-up time was 23.2 months. A higher T stage was seen in patients in Group A, while patients in Group C had a higher N stage. The median number of chemotherapy cycles delivered was equal in all arms at 4. Patients in Group A or B had significantly better PFS and OS compared with patients in Group C (Table). When adjusting for age, gender, T stage, and N stage, patients in Group C had significantly lower OS compared with those patients in Group A (HR 1.87, 95% CI 1.09 – 3.18, p=0.02). Conclusions: In this real-world analysis of patients with LN+ urothelial cancer, patient outcomes were improved with surgical resection of disease in combination with pre-operative chemotherapy. After chemotherapy in fit patients with LN+ disease, surgical management is a reasonable consideration. [Table: see text]