[Current status of adjuvant chemotherapy of invasive bladder cancer]

The current status of adjuvant chemotherapy for clinically localized but invasive transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder is reported. Since 1986, a prospective randomized study has been conducted to examine the effects of neoadjuvant cyclophosphamide + doxorubicin + cisplatin (CAP) and radiation therapy for T2-3N0-3M0. A total of 47 patients were entered. However, 4 patients were excluded from the study. All eligible patients were randomized into two groups: neoadjuvant CAP plus radiation and control group. In the neoadjuvant treated-group, a 55% complete response plus partial response rate and a 88% downstaging were noted. Both the 12- and 36-month disease-free survival rates of neoadjuvant treated-group were 94.7%, and were higher than those of the control group (p less than 0.1). As for T4N0-3M0 cases, a total of 6 patients were treated with neoadjuvant methotrexate + vinblastine + doxorubicin + cisplatin (M-VAC) therapy. Favorable results were not obtained in this study at this point, because full dose M-VAC and planned recycling were not performed sufficiently. These findings suggests that neoadjuvant CAP plus radiation therapy would be useful for T2-3 invasive cancer of the bladder. Methods to administer full dose M-VAC; such as developments of new chemotherapeutic agents and of new anti-toxic agents, should be developed. In addition, a more successful regimen than M-VAC should be considered for T4 localized invasive bladder cancer.