Flushing the bladder with a common chemotherapy drug immediately after surgery significantly reduces the chances of bladder cancer returning, new research shows.
The study may be the first phase III trial in the United States in two decades to show a benefit from this treatment strategy. European and Canadian urologists have been using it for years, with their own clinical trial data to support the procedure, researchers say.
“…if we can cut down on these recurrences, we will save a lot of people a lot of pain, money, and time lost to recovery.”
“The real importance of this study is that we now have a readily available drug that’s fairly inexpensive, well-tolerated, and effective,” says Edward M. Messing, professor of urology, oncology, and pathology at the University of Rochester Medical Center and its Wilmot Cancer Institute.
“One of the biggest issues with low-grade bladder cancer is that it frequently returns. I know some patients who have to undergo four surgeries a year, and if we can cut down on these recurrences, we will save a lot of people a lot of pain, money, and time lost to recovery.”
The clinical trials network, known as SWOG, conducted the randomized, double-blind trial involving 406 eligible patients at 23 cancer centers.
As reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, surgeons removed all cancerous tissue from study participants with a procedure known as TURBT, or transurethral resection of bladder tumor. Then, 201, or roughly half of the patients received the chemotherapy drug, gemcitabine, mixed with saline, administered via catheter to the bladder area within three hours after surgery.
Gemcitabine works by blocking new DNA and killing any dividing cells. It’s used to treat several other cancers, including advanced bladder cancer, but had not been studied in this setting among low-grade cancer patients. The second group of 205 patients received saline alone.
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Researchers followed all patients for four years—the time period when most bladder cancers return—to determine which treatment strategy worked better. The results were clear: A 34-percent reduction in the risk of recurrence for patients receiving the gemcitabine infusion.
Sixty-seven patients in the gemcitabine group, or 35 percent, experienced a recurrence, compared with 91 patients in the saline group, or 47 percent.
Further research is necessary to compare various chemotherapy agents for their effectiveness. About 80,000 Americans a year are diagnosed with bladder cancer, and the low-grade non-muscle invasive form makes up more than half of the new cases annually.
The NCI of the National Institutes of Health and the Eli Lilly and Company supported the work.
Source: University of Rochester
