Efficiency of bladder-sparing strategies for bladder cancer: an umbrella review

Bladder preservation (BP) has emerged as a clinical alternative to radical cystectomy (RC) for alleviating the substantial physical and psychological burden imposed on localized bladder cancer patients. Nevertheless, disparities persist in the comparative evaluations of BP and RC. We aimed to address the disparities between BP and RC. An umbrella review and meta-analysis were conducted to explore these disparities. We extracted data from meta-analyses and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) selected after searching PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Review Manager 5.4.0 and R x64 4.1.3 were used to evaluate the collected data. Our study included 11 meta-analyses and 3 RCTs. In terms of progression-free survival, all the meta-analyses reported that patients with localized bladder cancer who underwent BP exhibited outcomes comparable to those who underwent RC. Meta-analyses regarding the outcomes of cancer-specific survival (CSS) and overall survival (OS) are controversial. To solve these issues, we conducted a pooled analysis of CSS data, which supported the similarity of CSS between BP and RC with no significant heterogeneity [odds ratio (OR): 1.2; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.71-2.02; I² = 26%]. Similarly, the pooled OS results extracted from three RCTs indicated the comparability of OS between BP and RC with no significant heterogeneity (OR: 1.12; 95% CI: 0.41-3.07; I² = 33%). A combination of umbrella review and meta-analysis results suggested that BP had survival rates comparable to those of RC. We suggest that BP may be a more eligible therapy than RC for patients with localized muscle-invasive bladder cancer. This conclusion warrants further validation through randomized controlled trials.