[Systemic oncological treatment of bladder cancer]

M-VAC (methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin and cisplatin) and Cisplatin/Gemzar are potent therapies in the treatment of advanced bladder cancer. C/G provides similar efficacy in terms of overall survival compared with M-VAC, but does so with a superior safety profile. Therefore C/G is widely accepted as standard of care in locally advanced and metastatic bladder cancer. Despite potentially curative surgery almost half of the patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer will have recurrence of disease. Based on a recent meta-analysis with data from 3005 patients, and 2 randomised studies, neoadjuvant cisplatin-containing therapy has shown to improve overall survival. Thus, the use of neoadjuvant systemic treatment should be considered state-of-the-art. The question whether adjuvant treatment will improve the outcome is still not sufficiently answered.