Clinical evaluation of adjuvant chemotherapy for high stage bladder cancer

Thirty-seven patients who had undergone radical cystectomy and pelvic node dissection for pathologic stage pT2-4 and/or N+ disease received adjuvant chemotherapy involving the injection of cis-platinum alone or in its combination from June 1982 to April 1989. Adjuvant chemotherapy was performed using the following three protocols. Protocol 1 entails the administration of cis-platinum alone. Protocol 2, involving the administration of a combination of cis-platinum, adriamycin and 5-fluorouracil (CAF), was used for deeply invasive bladder cancer. Protocol 3, consisting of cis-platinum, vp-16 and adriamycin (CVA), was employed in patients with deeply invasive bladder cancer instead of protocol 2 from July 1987. Of the 37 patients, 27 were alive with no evidence of disease for an average of 42 months. One patient died as a result of factors unrelated to cancer. Local recurrence and/or distant metastases occurred in 9 patients and all died of cancer progression. The survival rate for all 37 patients at 87 months was 64.4%. The rates were 75% in pT2, 80% in pT3a, 50.8% in pT3b, and 44.4% in pT4. Although adjuvant chemotherapy combined with radical cystectomy seemed to be effective in cases with pathological stage pT3a or less, more intensive chemotherapy is needed in an attempt to improve poor prognosis in cases with pathological stages pT3b-4 or node involvement.