[Conservative treatment of bladder cancers with radiotherapy and concurrent chemotherapy: results and perspectives]

Role of radiotherapy in the management of bladder cancer: Recommendations of the French society for radiation oncology

We present the recommendations of the French society of oncological radiotherapy on the indications and techniques for external beam radiotherapy for bladder cancer.

Results of the phase II EORTC 22971 trial evaluating combined accelerated external radiation and chemotherapy with 5FU and cisplatin in patients with muscle invasive transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder

INTRODUCTION

We prospectively evaluated concomitant radiotherapy and chemotherapy for advanced bladder cancer in a phase II EORTC trial to test whether it could be further studied as a potential treatment of bladder cancer.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Patients up to 75 years of age with invasive transitional-cell carcinoma of the bladder up to 5 cm, stage pT2 to pT3b, N0M0, without residual macroscopical tumour after transurethral excision were eligible. Radiotherapy consisted of 2 fractions of 1.2 Gy daily up to 60 Gy delivered in a period of 5 weeks. During the first and the last week, cisplatin 20 mg/m(2)/day and 5 FU 375 mg/m(2)/day were given concomitantly.

RESULTS

The study was interrupted early due to poor recruitment. Nine patients of the originally 43 planned were treated. Mean age was 63 years. Five patients had tumour stage pT2, 1 stage pT3a and 3 stage pT3b. All patients completed radiotherapy and chemotherapy as scheduled. Only one grade 3 and no grade 4 toxicity was seen. All patients were evaluated 3 months after treatment: eight patients had no detectable tumour and one had para-aortic lymph nodes. During further follow-up, a second patient got lymph node metastases and two patients developed distant metastases (lung in the patient with enlarged lymph nodes at the first evaluation and abdominal in one other). Those three patients died at respectively 19, 14, and 18 months after registration. Late toxicity was limited and often temporary. After 26 to 57 months of follow-up, no local recurrences were seen. Six patients remained alive without disease.

DISCUSSION

Despite the small cohort, this combination of concomitant chemotherapy and accelerated hyperfractionated radiotherapy for invasive bladder cancer seemed to be well tolerated and to result in satisfactory local control with limited early and late toxicity. It could therefore be considered for study in further clinical trials.

Localized and locally advanced bladder cancer

Localized and locally advanced bladder cancer represents a heterogeneous spectrum of diseases with different biologic and clinical behavior. It varies with respect to invasive potential, propensity for metastases, and sensitivity to chemotherapy. Although several significant surgical advances have been made over the past 20 years in the treatment of muscle-invasive bladder cancer, resulting in decreases in perioperative morbidity and mortality and improvement of quality of life in patients with continent urinary diversions, the natural history of the disease has remained unaltered. Advances in chemotherapy for metastatic disease have prompted trials of systemic therapy in patients with early stage, high-risk disease administered before or after local therapy consisting of cystectomy or radiotherapy. The data available from nonrandomized and randomized trials have not definitively established the exact role of neoadjuvant chemotherapy and its impact on survival. Even if neoadjuvant chemotherapy does not improve survival, preliminary data suggest that bladder preservation may be possible in selected patients and that such combined therapy will hopefully lead to better patient management. The trials of postoperative chemotherapy provide insufficient evidence to support the routine use of adjuvant chemotherapy in clinical practice as a result of small sample size, confusing analyses, and the reporting of questionable conclusions. New large-scale, multicenter trials are imperative to provide convincing results. A better understanding of the microbiology of bladder cancer will influence the search for new therapeutic modalities. Molecular-targeted small-molecule therapy and monoclonal antibodies have begun to dominate contemporary studies.