Radiotherapy in bladder cancer

In the present review, we have evaluated the outcome of radiotherapy in patients with bladder cancer. The exact value of radical radiotherapy is difficult to establish because changes in treatment techniques and selection of patients have biased the results. The 5-year survival rates are reported to be 35-71% in T1 tumors, 27-59% in T2 tumors, 10-38% in T3 tumors and 0-16% in T4 tumors. Several other factors, like performance status and hemoglobin level, are important for the outcome. Morbidity of radical radiotherapy depends on several treatment and patient related factors, but 50-75% experience acute intestinal or urological symptoms and 10-20% may develop severe late toxicity, depending on the kind of registration. The importance of field size or overall treatment time cannot be established from available data. Hyperfractionation with dose escalation has proven effective in one study. Preoperative radiotherapy with cystectomy has not proven better than cystectomy alone or better than radiotherapy alone. The addition of systemic chemotherapy has increased disease-free survival, but has not significantly reduced the rate of distant metastases or improved overall survival. Presently, the standard radiation regimen is a conventional dose and fractionation schedule to a total dose of 60-66 Gy with a three- or four-field technique covering the bladder and tumor. The efficacy of additional irradiation of regional lymph nodes is questionable. New treatment possibilities with advanced techniques of radiotherapy, hyperfractionation and dose escalation and/or the addition of systemic chemotherapy may improve outcome. These options should be further explored in clinical trials. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.