Survival outcomes in patients with muscle invasive bladder cancer undergoing radical vs. partial cystectomy

While radical cystectomy (RC) is the standard of care for muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), partial cystectomy (PC) is an effective alternative in select patients. We sought to examine differences in survival for RC and PC in a hospital-based registry.

We identified patients diagnosed with cT2-4 bladder cancer who underwent RC or PC from 2003 to 2015 in the National Cancer Database (NCDB). Using inverse probability treatment weighting (IPTW) to control for known confounders, we compared the primary outcome of overall survival (OS) in patients who underwent RC vs. PC. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, univariable and multivariable Cox proportional hazards modeling were used. We performed a secondary survival analysis for a subcohort of patients with cT2, cN0, tumor size ≤5 cm, and no concurrent carcinoma in situ (CIS), who may be optimal candidates for PC.

A total of 22,534 patients met inclusion criteria, of which 6.9% (1,457) underwent PC. RC had longer median OS than PC (67.8 vs. 54.1 months) and on Cox regression analysis (HR 0.88, 95% CI, 0.80-0.95, P = 0.002). However, in our subcohort, there was no difference in OS between RC and PC (HR 1.02, 95% CI, 0.9-1.2, P = 0.74). PC was associated with increased time from surgery to any systemic therapy or death in the subcohort.

Among patients with clinically organ-confined MIBC, PC appears to afford similar survival outcomes to RC in a large national data set. The safety and tolerability of PC may warrant consideration in highly selected patients.