Investigation of postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy for locally advanced transitional cell carcinoma

From April 1985 to March 1997, 48 patients with locally advanced transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder or upper urinary tract (≥pT3 or ≥pN1 or pR1 or vascular involvement) underwent curative surgery (total cystectomy or total nephroureterectomy) at our hospital. Of the 48 patients, 14 received combination chemotherapy as postoperative adjuvant therapy, while the remaining 34 had no such adjuvant combination chemotherapy. The adjuvant chemotherapy group comprised 11 males and 3 females, and the median age was 59.5 (range: 34 to 76) years old. The non-chemotherapy group comprised 26 males and 8 females, and the median age was 72.0 (range: 41 to 83) years old. The disease-specific survival rate by the Kaplan-Meier method between the adjuvant chemotherapy group and the non-chemotherapy group was evaluated statistically in terms of the logrank test. We evaluated the survival rate in all cases (48 cases), pT3 or greater cases (38 cases), cases aged 75 years or younger (35 cases), bladder cancer cases (19 cases), upper urinary tract cancer cases (29 cases), cases with vascular involvement (37 cases), and cases containing G3 (27 cases). There were no significant differences in survival rates between the two groups.