TRANSARTERIAL INFUSION OF CISPLATIN AND DOXORUBICIN IN BLADDER-CANCER

Forty-five patients (median age 63 years) with muscle invasive bladder cancer were treated with transcatheter intraarterial infusion (TAI) o f cisplatin (CDDP) and doxorubicin. They received a total of 114 cours es (median 3 courses per patient) of TAI. Complete response was obtain ed in 20 patients (44%), partial response in 17 (38%), stable disease in 6(13%), and progression of disease in 2 patients (5%). The overall response rate was 82% at a median follow-up of 36 months. The actuaria l survival of the patient population was 72% at 5 years; 36 patients w ere alive and 9 had died of cancer progression. The treatment was gene rally extremely well tolerated without major complications. The curren t study also revealed the fact that papillary carcinomas were more sen sitive to this therapy than were non-papillary tumors. Overall, respon se rate and local control were significantly higher in low-grade than in high-grade tumors. The observed high complete response and good sur vival rate suggest that intraarterial CDDP and doxorubicin might be hi ghly effective for localized invasive bladder cancer.