Where are we with the treatment of metastatic bladder cancer?

Abstract

Although bladder cancer is a chemosensitive tumor, metastatic disease is related with poor prognosis and short-term survival. For two decades, the treatment of choice for metastatic bladder cancer has been cisplatin-based chemotherapy. Nowadays, non-platinum regimes have been tested such as taxanes and gemcitabine, which is considered as an attractive alternative. In parallel, double and triplet combination chemotherapy have been assessed in clinical trials. Furthermore, individualized treatments through the identification of molecular prognostic factors and application of targeted therapy have gained considerable interest.

Keywords::

• bladder cancer
• cisplatin
• chemotherapy
• gemcitabine
• metastasis
• survival
• taxanes