Outcomes of combination therapy (transurethral resection of tumorfollo wed by external beam radiation therapy) for muscle-invasive bladder cancer
We analyzed the outcomes in 29 patients (22 men and 7 women) treated with combination therapy for muscle-invasive bladder cancer. The median age of the patients was 68,3 years. Morphological confirmation of the diagnosis was available in all the cases. Twenty-two (75,9 %) bladder cancer patients were staged as T2N0M0, 3 (10,3 %) were staged as T3aN0M0, 2 (6,9 %) were staged as T3bN0M0, and 2 (6,9 %) were staged as TXN0M0. The first step in treatment was transurethral resection (TUR) of bladder tumor. And then three or four weeks later, external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) to a total tumor dose of 60 Gy was performed. After the completion of therapy, the local control was diagnosed in 22 (75,9 %) patients. The following factors enabled to achieve the local control: Т2 stage bladder tumor (р<0,001), tumor location at the lateral bladder wall (р<0,001), complete TUR of the primary tumor (р<0,05), maximum tumor size less than 5 cm in greatest dimension (р<0,05). The overall 5-year and 10-year survival rates were 41,8  10,5 % and 35,4  10,7 %, respectively; the corrected 5-year and 10-year survival rates were 65,1  11,0 % and 55,1  13,1 %, respectively.