Organ preservation in the management of bladder and prostate cancer

Optimal management of bladder cancer is still controversial. With radiotherapy organ preservation is achieved in 30% of patients in the absence of unfavorable factors. Better results are achieved with accelerated fractionation, neoadjuvant chemotherapy or concomitant radiochemotherapy. In particular, with the latter, the rate of complete response (70%) is 30% higher as compared to radiotherapy alone or transurethral resection (TUR) of bladder and chemotherapy. In the treatment of intracapsular prostate cancer, radiotherapy is a valid alternative to prostatectomy with comparable results in terms of disease-free survival. In case of extraprostatic disease, results are clearly less satisfactory because of lower local control and blood-borne metastases. Conformal radiotherapy and neoadjuvant and adjuvant hormonotherapy are being studied to improve results.