Therapy and prognosis for male anterior urethral carcinoma: an update

The scarcity of reports evaluating the effect of current treatment strategies for male urethral carcinoma has prompted a review of our recent experience. Since our last report (1980), we have seen 23 patients with this disease.

We performed a retrospective chart review of 23 patients seen in our institution between 1979 and 1990 with this type of cancer.

Fifty-two percent of our patients are alive without evidence of disease, after a mean follow-up of fifty months (range, 5 to 156 months). Treatment analysis indicates that distal urethrectomy and partial penectomy are adequate in controlling local disease for tumors arising in the fossa navicularis and penile urethra, respectively, and that en bloc excision of the penis, scrotum, prostate, and bladder together with resection of the inferior pubic rami, using myocutaneous flaps to cover the surgical defect, can provide long-term disease-free survival for patients whose tumor originates in the bulbomembranous urethra. Use of cisplatin-based chemotherapy resulted in a prolonged survival for patients who presented with metastatic disease.

We conclude that the prognosis for patients with urethral carcinoma has improved, and some of the patients are having a prolonged disease-free survival due, in part, to more effective local and regional control and improved chemotherapy.