Clinical outcome of radical cystectomy for patients with pT4 bladder cancer

The objective of this study was to analyze the outcomes of radical cystectomy for patients with pT4 bladder cancer.

Between 1995 and 2003, 583 patients underwent radical cystectomy for bladder cancer at our institution and related hospitals, including 76 pathologically diagnosed as having pT4 disease. Of these 76, this study included 60 patients after excluding 16 with pT4Tis disease, and a retrospective review of their records was carried out.

Pathological examinations demonstrated that seven (11.6%) and 53 (88.4%) patients were Grades 2 and 3, respectively, and 48 (80.0%), 38 (63.4%), 10 (16.7%) and 30 (50.0%) were positive for lymphatic invasion, microvenous invasion, surgical margin and lymph node metastasis, respectively. During the observation period of this study (median, 24.5 months; range, 2-89 months), disease recurrence occurred in 38 (63.3%), and the median time to recurrence after radical cystectomy was 7.0 months (range, 1-38 months). One-, 3- and 5-year cancer-specific survival rates of the 60 patients were 68.8%, 48.5% and 23.9%, respectively. Univariate analysis identified lymph node metastasis, lymphatic invasion, microvenous invasion and positive surgical margin as significant predictors for cancer-specific survival; however, only lymph node metastasis was shown to be independently associated with cancer-specific survival by multivariate analysis.

The prognosis of patients with pT4 bladder cancer is generally poor, particularly for those with nodal involvement. Therefore, it would be potentially important to carry out careful follow-up for such patients following radical cystectomy and, if necessary, to consider a multimodal therapeutic approach in an adjuvant setting.