Complex therapy of bladder cancer

Bladder cancer is the most common malignancy involving the urinary system. Urothelial (formerly called transitional cell) carcinoma is the predominant histologic type in the developed countries, where it accounts for approximately 90 percent of all bladder cancers. The optimal management of nonmuscle invasive urothelial cancer is highly important. For patients with muscle invasive cancer the gold standard treatment is the cystectomy. If the patient unable or unwilling to undergo radical cystectomy with urinary diversion, complete TURBT combined with radiation therapy plus chemotherapy may offer an alternative bladder-sparing approach. Patients with muscle invasive disease and regional lymph node metastasis limited to the pelvis (N1-N3), but without more distant lymph node or visceral metastasis may be treated with six cycles of cisplatin-based chemotherapy followed by cystectomy or a combined-modality approach. In metastatic cases the combination chemotherapy may prolong survival and often provides palliation of symptomatic disease. Checkpoint inhibition immunotherapy has substantial clinical activity in post-chemotherapy patients and is the preferred therapy for patients who have progressed after platinumbased therapy or is not suitable for them.