Bladder Cancer

Presentation with a urinary tract infection delayed a bladder cancer diagnosis among a population of Medicare patients, with worse delays experienced by women.

Phase II study results found that half of patients with relapsed or refractory urothelial carcinoma responded to treatment with pazopanib and paclitaxel.

Patients with bladder cancer derived an overall survival benefit from the use of adjuvant chemotherapy compared with observation.

A urine test (CellDetect) was able to detect disease recurrence in bladder cancer patients, with a reported sensitivity of 84.4% and specificity of 82.7%.

While observation may be appropriate for select cases where prognosis is poor, rates of non-treatment are unacceptably high in muscle-invasive bladder cancer.

Long-term survival rates of patients after laparoscopic surgery for bladder cancer are similar to rates achieved with standard open surgery.

An extremely large database study across more than one million people found no increased risk of bladder cancer with the diabetes drug pioglitazone.

A large phase I study showed that the PD-L1 antibody known as MPDL3280A has promising activity in patients with urothelial bladder cancer.

Cancer survivors are at an increased risk for developing a second smoking-associated cancer if they smoked cigarettes prior to their first cancer diagnosis.

Bladder neoplasms are associated with a high frequency of painless hematuria; however, when compared with the bleeding tendencies of other solid tumors, it is arguable that this comparatively high bleeding frequency is in part the result of an ascertainment bias.

Overall, approximately 2% of patients with bladder cancer will experience a venous thromboembolism event, a rate five times higher than that in the overall population; also, such an event results in a threefold increased risk of death in patients with cancer.

Cancer promotes the development of venous thromboembolism (VTE) by inducing a hypercoaguable state, through mechanisms that are complex and multifactorial.

Despite the higher risk of VTE in patients with bladder cancer, ironically, their risk of bleeding and anemia, and greater need for transfusion of blood products, poses an equally significant risk of morbidity and mortality, especially among those who undergo cystectomy.

Immediate adjuvant cisplatin-based combination chemotherapy after radical cystectomy in patients with transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder significantly increased progression-free survival, according to the final results of the EORTC 30994 trial.

A reduced estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was found to be associated with a significantly increased risk for renal and urothelial cancer, according to the results of a recently published study.

An increased intake of vitamin A may result in a decreased risk for bladder cancer, according to the results of a meta-analysis.

Neoadjuvant treatment with dose-dense methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin, and cisplatin was well tolerated and should be considered a reasonable option for patients with muscle-invasive urothelial cancer, according to a new study.

A noninvasive DNA methylation test using urine samples from patients with non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer can detect cancer recurrence. The test demonstrated both specificity and sensitivity in detecting recurrence.

In an early trial, a patient with bladder cancer has had a 14-month complete response to treatment with the mTOR inhibitor everolimus.

A new study found that induction bladder-conserving treatment was safe in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer who achieved only a near-complete response.

As part of The Cancer Genome Atlas project, a new study aimed at understanding the molecular basis of bladder cancer has identified several potential drug targets.

A 76-year-old woman with a history of dementia, hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and newly diagnosed squamous cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder was referred to Indiana University Medical Center after 3 to 4 weeks of hospitalization at two other hospitals.

A 55-year-old woman with a history of metastatic melanoma in remission for 8 years presented to the emergency department with gross hematuria. A CT scan, ordered because the patient was in menopause, demonstrated a bladder tumor.

There will always be patients who are either not surgical candidates or who refuse radical cystectomy, but in all other cases radical extirpative surgery should be the preferred management for patients with HGT1 disease who fail to respond to intravesical bacillus Calmette-Guérin therapy.

Decades of experience now exist to support the use of chemoradiotherapy in the treatment of muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Chemoradiotherapy for T1 tumors that recur following bacillus Calmette-Guérin therapy is promising and provides an important curative alternative for those unable or unwilling to undergo radical cystectomy.

General practitioners took longer to suspect a diagnosis of bladder or renal cancer in women compared with men, according to a recent study.

Recent studies suggest patients with bladder cancer are not receiving optimal care or the follow-up surveillance as recommended by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN).

The use of cannabis among men has been linked to a significantly decreased risk for bladder cancer, according to a recent study; however, no cause and effect association has been found.

This review focuses on targeted therapies related to these pathways of interest for the treatment of advanced urothelial carcinoma, describing the evidence to support further investigation of these approaches.

Current efforts utilizing genomic strategies to unravel the biology of urothelial carcinoma will undoubtedly lead to rational targets, new therapies, and a renewed enthusiasm among researchers and clinicians working in this field-which ultimately will improve the lives of patients with this devastating disease.