EAU 2017 | Novel treatments in muscle invasive and non-muscle invasive bladder cancer

Hendrik Van Poppel, MD, PhD, from KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, discusses the differences in treatment between muscle and non-muscle invasive bladder cancer at the European Association of Urology (EAU) in 2017 in London, UK. In non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, patients with high grade disease could be candidates for cystectomy. However, there are alternatives that can be tried first, such a intravesical BCG or mitomycin C. If patients do not respond to this, another alternative is hyperthermia with mitomycin C. In muscle invasive bladder cancer, the most promising progress has been with immune-oncological agents, PD1/PDL1. This has been shown to extend survival in patients who progress despite having chemotherapy.