Despite therapy with intravesical Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, roughly 50% of patients with high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer will recur. Although cystectomy is the oncologic gold standard in BCG unresponsive disease, salvage intravesical therapies are valuable treatment options that aim to preserve quality of life while decreasing the risk of cancer recurrence and progression. Single-agent intravesical chemotherapy has been a mainstay salvage treatment and foundational to future trials of combination therapy. Treatment with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin derivative therapies has shown promise with response rates comparable with those of single agent chemotherapy and may warrant further investigation in the continued climate of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin shortages.
The Urologic clinics of North America. 2020 Feb [Epub]
Christopher R Haas, James M McKiernan
Columbia University Department of Urology, Herbert Irving Pavilion, 161 Fort Washington Avenue, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10032, USA. Electronic address: ., Columbia University Department of Urology, Herbert Irving Pavilion, 161 Fort Washington Avenue, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10032, USA.