The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has endorsed guidelines established by the European Association of Urology (EAU) for the treatment of muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) and metastatic bladder cancer.
Bladder cancer is the ninth most common type of cancer in the world. In the United States alone, an estimated 16,000 deaths related to the disease occurred in 2015, and more than 74,000 new cases are expected to arise in 2016. About 30% of those patients will present with MIBC, which is more likely to metastasize. For these reason, it is important that physicians have the proper guidance for treating their patients.
The EAU guidelines for treating MIBC and metastatic bladder cancer were developed in March 2015 based on a systematic review of the medical literature. An ASCO panel convened for the purpose of considering the methodology used to create the EAU guidelines has now officially endorsed the guidelines, although with several qualifying statements.
In particular, ASCO clarified that a bladder diagram should only be used when it is feasible and did not endorse preoperative radiotherapy for operable MIBC, which they felt did not have enough supporting evidence. In their guidelines, the EAU claimed preoperative radiotherapy for operable MIBC could result in tumor down staging after 4-6 weeks. In their endorsement, ASCO stressed the need for multidisciplinary approaches to diagnosis and treatment MIBC and metastatic bladder cancer.
Overall, the ASCO panel commended the EAU on the development of its guidelines for MIBC and metastatic bladder cancer, which will be disseminated to the ASCO network to improve the quality of care delivered by its members throughout the United States.
The official endorsement was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
