Can We Use ctDNA to Refine Selection of Urothelial Carcinoma Patients for Adjuvant Therapy?
Adjuvant therapy for urothelial carcinoma is a reasonable standard of care consideration for patients after radical cystectomy or nephroureterectomy, for those with lower and upper tract disease, respectively. Although neoadjuvant cisplatin-combination chemotherapy is still a current standard,1 many patients never receive neoadjuvant therapy. The Peri-Operative chemotherapy versus sUrveillance in upper Tract urothelial cancer (POUT) trial results support the use of adjuvant chemotherapy with gemcitabine/cisplatin or gemcitabine/carboplatin, as the primary endpoint of disease free survival (DFS) was positive in favor of adjuvant chemotherapy over surveillance with a HR of 0.45 (95% CI 0.30-0.68, p=0.0001).2 Although overall survival was not the primary endpoint of the trial, the 5-year overall survival was 66% vs. 57%, with a univariable HR 0.68 (95% CI 0.46-1.00, p-0.049).3