Pre-Surgery Chemo for Bladder Cancer Boosts Survival

A study of patients with advanced bladder cancer has shown that a special combination of chemotherapy drugs administered before surgery improved their survival by 2.6 years. The patients who had the drugs survived for 6.2 years, compared to 3.6 years for patients who did not have these drugs before surgery. The study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in San Francisco.

The study involved 317 patients with advanced bladder cancer. Those administered drugs before surgery were given a combination of four drugs: methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin, and cisplatin. The drugs were given before surgery rather than after because doctors believed they were more likely then to prevent the spread of microscopic cancer cells. Other studies have found that patients with colon, breast, rectal, esophageal, and stomach cancers also fared better by having chemotherapy before surgery.

The study was led by Dr. Ronald B. Natale of Cedars-Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles (CA, USA). In 38% of the study patients who had chemotherapy, pathology showed no evidence of cancer in the removed bladders. This suggests that some bladder cancer patients might benefit from chemotherapy alone or perhaps delay surgery. Dr. Natale urges others to conduct a new study that could confirm the findings of his group.




Related Links:
Cedars-Sinai Cancer Center