Effectiveness of adjuvant chemotherapy for locally advanced bladder cancer

Purpose: Given that randomized trials exploring adjuvant chemotherapy for bladder cancer have been underpowered and/or terminated prematurely, yielding inconsistent results and creating an evidence gap, we sought to compare the effectiveness of cystectomy versus cystectomy plus adjuvant chemotherapy in real-world patients. Patients and Methods: We conducted an observational study to compare the effectiveness of adjuvant chemotherapy versus observation postcystectomy in patients with pathologic T3-4 and/or pathologic nodepositive bladder cancer using the National Cancer Data Base. We compared overall survival using propensity score (-adjusted, -stratified, -weighted, and -matched) analyses based on patient-, facility-, and tumor-level characteristics. A sensitivity analysis was performed to examine the impact of performance status. Results: A total of 5,653 patients met study inclusion criteria; 23% received adjuvant chemotherapy postcystectomy. Chemotherapy-treated patients were younger and more likely to have private insurance, live in areas with a higher median income and higher percentage of high school-educated residents, and have lymph node involvement and positive surgical margins (P,.05 for all comparisons). Stratified analyses adjusted for propensity score demonstrated an improvement in overall survival with adjuvant chemotherapy (hazard ratio, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.64 to 0.76), and similar results were achieved with propensity score matching and weighting. The association between adjuvant chemotherapy and improved survival was consistent in subset analyses and was robust to the effects of poor performance status. Conclusion: In this observational study, adjuvant chemotherapy was associated with improved survival in patients with locally advanced bladder cancer. Although neoadjuvant chemotherapy remains the preferred approach based on level I evidence, these data lend further support for the use of adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced bladder cancer postcystectomy who did not receive chemotherapy preoperatively. \ua9 2016 by American Society of Clinical Oncology

Comparative effectiveness of treatment strategies for bladder cancer with clinical evidence of regional lymph node involvement

Purpose: Patients with bladder cancer with clinical lymph node involvement (cN+) are at high risk for distant metastases, but are potentially curable. Such patients are excluded from neoadjuvant chemotherapy trials and pooled with patients with distant metastases in first-line chemotherapy trials not suited to define the role of combined-modality therapy. To address this evidence void, we performed a comparative effectiveness analysis. Methods: Weincluded cTanyN1-3M0 bladder cancer patients from the National Cancer Data Base (2003-2012) treated with chemotherapy and/or cystectomy. We used multistate survival analysis, allowing for delayed entry, to assess overall survival (OS) according to various treatment strategies. Effectiveness was estimated with multivariable adjustment for tumor-, patient-, and facility-level characteristics. Results: Among 1,739 patients (cN1, 48%; cN2, 45%; cN3, 7%), 1,104 underwent cystectomy and 635 were treated with chemotherapy alone. Of the cystectomy patients, 363 received preoperative and 328 received adjuvant chemotherapy. The crude 5-year OS for chemotherapy alone, cystectomy alone, preoperative chemotherapy followed by cystectomy, and cystectomy followed by adjuvant chemotherapy was 14% (95% CI, 11% to 17%), 19% (95% CI, 15% to 24%), 31% (95% CI, 25% to 38%), and 26% (95% CI, 21% to 34%), respectively. Compared with cystectomy alone, preoperative chemotherapy was associated with a significant improvement in OS (hazard ratio, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.66 to 0.97). Adjuvant chemotherapy was also associated with a significant improvement in survival compared with cystectomy alone. The survival of patients treated with chemotherapy alone was worse than those treated with cystectomy alone. Conclusion: A subset of patients with cN+ bladder cancer achieves long-term survival. Combined-modality therapy, with chemotherapy and cystectomy, is associated with the best outcomes. © 2016 by American Society of Clinical Oncology