A systematic review of intravesical bacillus Calmette-Guerin plus transurethral resection vs transurethral resection alone in Ta and T1 bladder cancer

Objective To assess, in a systematic review, the effectiveness of intravesi cal bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) in preventing tumour recurrence in patie nts with medium/high risk Ta and T1 bladder cancer. Patients and methods An electronic database search of Medline, Embase, DARE , the Cochrane Library, Cancerlit, Healthstar and BIDS was undertaken, plus hand searching of the Proceedings of ASCO, for randomized controlled trial s, in any language. comparing transurethral resection (TUR) alone with TUR followed by intravesical BCG in patients with Ta and T1 bladder cancer. Results The search identified 26 publications comparing TUR with TUR+BCG. S ix trials were considered acceptable, representing 585 eligible patients, 2 81 in the TUR-alone group and 304 in the TUR+BCG group. The major clinical outcome chosen was tumour recurrence. The weighted mean log hazard ratio fo r the first recurrence, taken across all six trials, was -0.83 (95% confide nce interval -0.57 to -1.08, P<0.001), which is equivalent to a 56%, reduct ion in the hazard, attributable to BCG. The Peto odds ratio for patients re curring at 12 months was 0.3 (95% confidence interval of 0.21-0.43, P<0.001 ), significantly favouring BCG therapy. Manageable toxicities associated wi th intravesical BCG were cystitis (67%), haematuria (23%), fever (25%) and urinary frequency (71%). No BCG-induced deaths were reported. Conclusion TUR with intravesical BCG provides a significantly better prophy laxis of tumour recurrence in Ta and T1 bladder cancer than TUR alone. Rand omized trials are still needed to address the issues of BCG strain, dose an d schedule, and to better quantify the effect on progression to invasive di sease.