Bladder sparing surgery for locally advanced female urethral cancer

Cystectomy remains one of the standard treatments for women with locally advanced (stage C) urethral cancer, or stage A or B lesions that have failed radiation therapy. Often, the urethral neoplasm does not invade the bladder. We treated 5 women with stage C urethral cancer by wide local excision with or without concomitant radiation therapy, while preserving the bladder. Local control was achieved in all patients with followup ranging from 4 to 75 months (median 42). We believe that bladder sparing treatment strategies should be considered for selected stage C tumors when the bladder is not invaded by the neoplasm.