NONMUSCLE INVASIVE TRANSITIONAL CELL CARCINOMA OF URINARY BLADDER – ADJUVANT INTRAVESICAL THERAPIES AFTER TRANSURETHRAL TUMOR RESECTION

Introduction. More than 70% of all bladder cancers are nonmuscle invasive involving only the mucosa and the submucosa. A large percentage of patients present local recurrence after endoscopic surgery, and many of them progress to muscle invasive disease necessitating radical cystectomy. The high recurrence and progression rate is the reason to use intravesical therapy to prevent recurrences. The aim of this study is to compare the efficacity and safety of intravesical immunotherapy with Bacillus Calmette Guerin (BCG) vs. chemotherapy (Pharmoribicin) after TUR-B for NMIBC. Material and methods. Following TURB and pathological analysis, NMIBC was stratified into low, intermediate and high-risk groups depending on the probability of recurrence and progression to muscle-invasive disease. Patients were treated with adjuvant intravesical therapies, BCG or Pharmorubicin. Results. Between 2008 and 2012, a total of 125 patients with NMIBC were diagnosed in the Urology Department Sibiu. Histopathological data show: pT1 G1 – 48 patients (38.4%), pT1 G2 – 69 patients (55.2%), pT1G3 and or Tis – 8 patients (6.4%). Adjuvant intravesical therapies with Pharmorubicin was administered to 83 patients (66.4%) and with BCG 42 patients (33.6%). Pharmorubicin, the recurrence rate was 22.8% in the first year and at 5 years there was a recurrence of 36.1%. For the group of patients treated with BCG recurrent rate was 14.2% in the first year and 33,3% at 5 years. For the whole group of patients tumor progression was 2.4% in the first year and 9.6% at 5 years. For the Pharmorubicin group, in the first year, the progression was 2.4% compared with 2.3% tumor progression in the BCG-treated group. Conclusions. Intravesical instillation treatment after TURB reduce the recurrence rate and tumor progression. In our series there are no major differences between efficacity of intravesical immunotherapy (BCG) vs. chemotherapy (Pharmoribicin). Disease-free survival and progression-free survival are comparable to the two studied lots.