A prospective phase II study carried out to evaluate hypofractionated radiotherapy with concurrent gemcitabine for bladder preservation in the elderly patient with bladder cancer.
Thirty-one patients were enrolled, age ≥65years, diagnosed with transitional cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder, after a maximum safe transurethral resection of a bladder tumour. They received 52.5Gy in 20 fractions using 3D conformal radiotherapy with concurrent 100mg/m2 gemcitabine weekly as a radiosensitizer.
All patients completed their radiation therapy course, while seven patients received their chemotherapy irregularly due to grade 3 toxicities. Twenty-five patients (80.6%) achieved a complete response. At 2-years, overall survival was 94.4% and disease-free survival was 72.6%. T3 and residual after transurethral resection are factors that adversely affect disease-free survival.
Hypofractionated radiotherapy and gemcitabine as a radiosensitizer in elderly as organ preservation for transitional cell carcinoma bladder cancer have acceptable toxicity profile with good response rate and disease-free survival, keeping salvage cystectomy for persistence or recurrence of invasive cancer.
Cancer radiotherapie : journal de la Societe francaise de radiotherapie oncologique. 2018 Apr 17 [Epub ahead of print]
H A H Mohamed, M A Salem, M S Elnaggar, A Gabr, A M Abdelrheem
Radiation Oncology Department, South Egypt Cancer Institute, Assiut University, Egypt. Electronic address: ., Surgical Oncology Department, South Egypt Cancer Institute, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt. Electronic address: ., Clinical Oncology and Nuclear Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt. Electronic address: ., Medical Oncology Department, South Egypt Cancer Institute, Assiut University, Egypt. Electronic address: ., Medical Oncology Department, South Egypt Cancer Institute, Assiut University, Egypt.