Management of concomitant ureteral carcinoma in situ at radical cystectomy

We conducted a retrospective study to evaluate and define the management of concomitant ureteral carcinoma in situ (CIS) at radical cystectomy.

For 158 consecutive patients, who underwent radical cystectomy for invasive bladder cancer, ureteral CIS missed by preoperative examinations were evaluated by intraoperative analysis of frozen sections or postoperative histological analysis. The median follow-up period was 3.4 years.

In total, 15 concomitant ureteral CIS were diagnosed by intraoperative (n=9) or postoperative analysis (n=6). Additional ureteral resection achieved no malignancies in the final ureteral margins of eight patients. During the follow-up period, five patients (3.6%) suffered from tumor recurrence in the upper urinary tract in total, as did three (20%) among the 15 patients with ureteral CIS missed by preoperative examinations. No recurrence was identified in the eight patients with no malignancy in the final ureteral margins after additional resection. Furthermore, multivariate analysis indicated that the presence of bladder CIS was a risk factor for the presence of concomitant ureteral CIS.

Detection of concomitant ureteral CIS by intraoperative studies, in combination with complete resection of ureteral CIS, might be beneficial for patients with risk factors such as bladder CIS.