title: Chemotherapy practices and perspectives in invasive bladder cancer.
abstract: Bladder cancer is the fifth most common cancer in adult patients. Two-thirds of patients have superficial tumors and their treatment is conservative. Nevertheless, 30% of superficial tumors become infiltrative and represent a third of tumors at initial diagnosis. Overall mortality from bladder cancer is 30%. Important molecular events may explain the carcinogenesis and evolution of these tumors. Infiltrating bladder cancers are currently treated by radical cystectomy. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy has demonstrated a positive impact on patients' outcomes before cystectomy. Adjuvant chemotherapy after cystectomy is currently being studied in an international randomized trial. Patients with advanced disease are treated by chemotherapy with palliative intentions. Two regimens are standard: the combination of methotrexate, vinblastine, adriamycin and cisplatin, and the combination of gemcitabine and cisplatin. The addition of paclitaxel to the latter regimen is the subject of ongoing study. Only a few patients have long-term nonevolutive disease. Research must be focused on the combination of chemotherapy and targeted drugs directed through gene methylation, cytokine-receptor activation and signaling pathways.
authors.affiliation: Centre Léon Bérard, Department of Medical Oncology, 28 rue Laënnec, 69008 Lyon, France. flechon@lyon.fnclcc.fr
authors.forename: Aude
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Flechon
authors.forename: Jean-Pierre
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Droz
mesh_terms: D000971:Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols / Q000627:therapeutic use; D017024:Chemotherapy, Adjuvant / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D001749:Urinary Bladder Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology*