Safety and efficacy of non-surgical treatments for chronic post-radiation cystitis: a systematic review.

Introduction: Post-radiation cystitis is a complication of external beam radiation therapy, for the radical treatment of pelvic malignancies as radical treatment for pelvic malignancies. Chronic, refractory, post-radiation cystitis is problematic in its management, mainly when a conservative approach is preferred. Conservative methods are the first line of treatment, especially since the area has been irradiated, making surgical treatment more challenging.The objective of this systematic review is to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of conservative methods for the management of post-radiation cystitis. All non-invasive methods were included in the research, in patients over 18 years of age undergoing pelvic radiation therapy.

Material and methods: We conducted a systematic search for comparable studies on the conservative treatment of chronic post-radiation cystitis, analysing the efficacy and safety of these techniques, based on a specific protocol. The PubMed, Scopus, and CENTRAL databases and the grey literature were searched. Risk control of the individual papers was carried out using the RoB2 and ROBINS-I tools.

Results: A total of 282 papers were reviewed, of which 6 were included in the review: 3 randomised clinical trials and 3 non-randomised studies. Each of these studies investigated a different treatment, using a different population as control group, so it was not possible to conduct a meta-analysis of the studies.

Conclusions: Although most conservative measures appear to be successful in the management of post-radiation cystitis, more studies, especially randomised clinical trials, are needed before an algorithm of conservative methods can be created.