Overview of advanced urothelial cancer trials of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group

Chemotherapy for Metastatic or Unresectable Bladder Cancer

Cisplatin, methotrexate, doxorubicin, and vinblastine (M-VAC) combination chemotherapy has been the historic standard of care in patients with advanced urothelial tumors. Phase III trials have evaluated new combinations such as gemcitabine/cisplatin (GC), carboplatin/paclitaxel, docetaxel/cisplatin, and interferon-alpha/5-fluorouracil/cisplatin. However, these new regimens have failed to demonstrate superiority in terms of overall survival when compared with classic M-VAC. The GC doublet has proved to be a new standard treatment alternative based on an improved toxicity profile and similar survival results. The addition of a third agent (paclitaxel) to this regimen is the focus of a phase III trial. However, long-term follow-up with classical and new regimens (doublets and triplets) still show limited efficacy and emphasize the need to identify more active treatment. For "unfit" patients, ie, those unable to receive cisplatin-based regimens, conventional regimens include methotrexate, carboplatin, and vinblastine (M-CAVI), carboplatin-gemcitabine, carboplatin-paclitaxel, gemcitabine-taxane, or monotherapy with either gemcitabine, carboplatin, or a taxane. New drugs, including pemetrexed and vinflunine, are now being studied for salvage therapy. In addition to new active drug combinations and targeted therapies, chemotherapy optimization using molecular characteristics to predict chemosensitivity is emerging.

Chemotherapy and cystectomy for invasive transitional cell carcinoma of bladder

Invasive transitional cell bladder cancer is associated with occult metastasis. Approximately 50% of patients with clinically localized, invasive bladder cancer ultimately die of their disease. Systemic chemotherapy has been combined with radical cystectomy in an attempt to improve survival. Phase I and II trials have achieved tumor down-staging. Initial randomized trials did not show a statistically significant survival benefit from systemic single agent chemotherapy. More recently, two multi-center randomized trials have shown a significant survival benefit from neoadjuvant combination chemotherapy. Adjuvant chemotherapy trials, to date, have failed to show statistically improved survival, although most published studies have been methodologically flawed. For invasive, clinically nonmetastatic bladder cancer, neo-adjuvant chemotherapy followed by radical cystectomy is one of the new standards of care. The role of postsurgical systemic chemotherapy appears promising, but has not been proven in a randomized trial. Molecular prognostication is now being incorporated into the design of clinical trials of adjuvant chemotherapy for bladder cancer.