Ablation of superficial bladder tumors with focused extracorporeal pyrotherapy.
OBJECTIVE
We report the first experimental studies of focused extracorporeal pyrotherapy.


METHODS
Focused extracorporeal pyrotherapy has been used to treat superficial bladder tumors in a Phase II protocol in 25 patients. In 5 cases, for technical reasons, pyrotherapy was not used. In 20 patients (10 under general anesthesia and 10 under spinal anesthesia), the mean treated volume was 3 cm3 with an average of 300 shots and a mean skin focused length of 90 mm. Treatment time was 44 minutes; hospital stay was 2 days. Postoperatively, two skin burns and one acute retention were observed.


RESULTS
Of 20 patients, 15 (75%) had a normal urinary cytology bladder ultrasonography and cystoscopy at 1 month. In 67% of patients with primary tumor, there was no recurrence at 1 year; 33% had recurrent tumors. No infiltrative tumor or metastases have been observed during this follow-up (3 to 21 months).


CONCLUSIONS
These encouraging results show that ablation of superficial bladder tumor is feasible. The technique must be improved to allow treatment of larger tumor volume in a shorter time.
Vallancien
G
G
Department of Urology and Pathology, Institut Mutualiste Montsouris, Paris, France.
Harouni
M
M
Guillonneau
B
B
Veillon
B
B
Bougaran
J
J
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D004867:Equipment Design; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000628:therapy*; D012307:Risk Factors; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014464:Ultrasonic Therapy / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D001749:Urinary Bladder Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*