Contemporary cystectomy versus preoperative radiation plus cystectomy for bladder cancer

The role of preoperative radiation therapy (RT) as an adjunct to radical cystectomy (C) was studied by reviewing 58 consecutive patients requiring bladder removal during 1980-1982 for transitional cell carcinoma (TCC). Thirty-six patients underwent RT + C; 22 had C alone. The sole reason for choosing between RT + C versus C was physician prejudice favoring one form of therapy over another. Pretreatment clinical staging was similar in both groups, slightly favoring the RT + C group with only 25 percent versus 36 percent of C patients with clinical stage exceeding B1. Pathologic stage distribution similarly favored the RT + C group slightly with only 56 percent versus 68 percent of C patients having lesions with P-stage greater than B1. Thirty-three percent of patients in the RT + C group had papillary lesions in contrast to only 27 percent in the C alone group. There was only one postoperative death in each group. Three-year minimal follow-up was available in all surviving patients. One-, two-, and three-year survival free of disease was 94 percent, 80 percent, and 70 percent, respectively, in the group treated by C alone. Similar figures for the RT + C group were 86 percent, 76 percent, and 60 percent, respectively. Projected five-year survival rates for both groups regardless of preoperative RT was over 60 percent. All but one failure in the RT + C group had 4,000 rad or more preoperative radiation. This contemporary study shows no advantage of preoperative radiation in patients requiring cystectomy for transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder.