Clinical panurothelial disease in patients with superficial bladder tumors: therapeutic implications

We established the prognostic and therapeutic implications of panurothelial involvement in patients with superficial bladder tumors for optimizing therapeutic approaches in those at risk for panurothelial involvement.

We studied the records of 35 patients with clinical panurothelial disease. Since all of these patients presented with high risk superficial bladder cancer during followup, they were included in specific therapeutic and followup regimens. Radical procedures or conservative therapies were indicated mainly according to pathological examination and the recurrence pattern.

Panurothelial involvement was a late stage of a recurrent and diffuse process that essentially developed in sequences, in which all patients presented with high risk superficial bladder tumors. This process involved continued relapse after panurothelial involvement developed. Notably 19 patients (79.1%) at risk for recurrence had repeat relapse in the urothelium. In the upper urinary tract 12 patients (34.3%) had bilateral involvement, including 7 (41.2%) of 17 patients after cystectomy. We identified 2 subgroups of patients. The subgroup with a better prognosis included 27 patients in whom late panurothelial disease developed step by step after a complete response to intravesical therapy, including 14 (51.8%) who were free of disease. The other subgroup with a poor prognosis included 8 patients with concurrent bladder carcinoma in situ and prostate involvement as well as early panurothelial disease, of whom only 2 (25%) were disease-free. All patients underwent many therapeutic approaches. A mean of 7.5 surgical procedures per patient were done, including a mean of 5.5 transurethral resections, a mean of 1 conservative approach to the upper urinary tract and a mean of 1.1 radical procedures. At a median followup of 111 months 10 patients (28.5%) were disease-free but only 7 (20%) retained the bladder, while 19 (54.3%) died of tumor.

Patients with high risk superficial bladder multifocal tumors and associated bladder carcinoma in situ are at high risk for panurothelial involvement. Radical cystectomy may be recommended in these patients when initially or during followup, concurrent high risk superficial bladder tumors and prostate involvement develop or prostate involvement recurs. For the upper urinary tract conservative therapies may be advisable when noninfiltrating tumors are diagnosed even after cystectomy due to the high rate of bilateral new onset disease. When cystectomy is performed, extended excision of the upper urinary tract and pyelo-intestinal anastomosis may be considered.