Combining surgery and chemotherapy for invasive bladder cancer: current and future directions

More than 13,000 patients died from invasive bladder cancer in 2005 alone. Radical cystectomy is the most commonly prescribed treatment for patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer, or for those with a nonmuscle-invasive disease that is refractory to intravesical therapy. Despite advances in surgical technique and improved understanding of the role of pelvic lymphadenectomy, 5-year survival probabilities suggest that improvements in treatment are necessary. The maturation of several randomized clinical trials on perioperative chemotherapy, and particularly neoadjuvant chemotherapy, clearly suggest that an integrated treatment program of systemic chemotherapy and definitive locoregional therapy may improve the outcome for bladder cancer patients. The next frontier is the molecular characterization of this spectrum of diseases that make up invasive bladder cancer and targeted therapeutics. Prospective validation of molecular markers and evaluation of novel therapeutic agents, alone or in combination with established cytotoxic agents, provide hope of better outcomes for bladder cancer patients.