[Pelvic recurrence of bladder carcinoma following total cystectomy]

The patients who undergo total cystectomy for high stage bladder carcinoma have poor prognosis because of local extension or distant metastases. In the case of recurrent lesions after total cystectomy, radiotherapy and chemotherapy are generally selected. In some cases of recurrent tumors localized within the pelvic cavity and with no distant metastases, however, surgical resection of the tumor is effective in local disease control combined with radio- and chemotherapy. Surgical treatment is not only effective in reducing the cell number in a bulky tumor, but also improves clinical symptoms and conditions such as pain, bleeding, rectal irritability, intestinal obstruction and so on. We present here three patients who underwent extensive operation for pelvic recurrence of bladder carcinoma following total cystectomy. Two of these cases died of progressive disease, nine months and five months after the extensive operations. The third patient died of acute pericarditis thirteen months after the second operation. Autopsy revealed that the surgical treatment was effective in controlling the local recurrence in the third case. Furthermore, some problems regarding pelvic recurrence and surgical treatment are discussed.