Oncological outcomes of patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer treated with trimodal strategy: A French multicentric study.

Purpose: Trimodal therapy, an organ-sparing alternative, may be proposed for selected patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer instead of radical cystectomy. In this multicentre retrospective study, we aimed to assess the oncological outcomes of patients who had trimodal therapy for a muscle-invasive bladder cancer.

Materials and methods: Seventy-three patients from four centres treated who had trimodal therapy (maximal transurethral resection of bladder tumour and concomitant chemoradiotherapy) for localized muscle-invasive bladder cancer were included. Patients meeting the optimal trimodal therapy eligibility criteria as per the European Association of Urology guidelines were identified. Overall survival, recurrence-free survival and cancer-specific survival were assessed using the Kaplan-Meier method. The cumulative incidence of recurrence was estimated using the Kalbfleisch-Prentice method.

Results: Median overall survival was 27.0 months (95 % confidence interval [CI]: 20.3-58.3 months), 5-years overall-, cancer-specific- and recurrence-free survival rates were 37.5% (95 % CI: 25.5-49.5 %), 60 % (95 % CI: 48.3-72.0 %), and 17.9 % (95 % CI: 9.3-28.8 %), respectively. There was no significant difference in 5-year overall survival and recurrence-free survival between the trimodal therapy-eligible and non-eligible patients (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.38, P=0.30 and HR: 0.96, P=0.90, respectively). The univariate analysis did not reveal any significant prognostic factors associated with recurrence-free or overall survival.

Conclusion: Trimodal therapy offers encouraging specific survival, the prognosis remains poor. Our study highlights the low number and high frailty of patients to whom trimodal therapy is offered in clinical practice.