Immune Therapies in Non-Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer

• Published in: Current treatment options in oncology 2015-02, Vol.16 (2), p.5-5, Article 5
• Main Authors: Ho, Philip L., Williams, Stephen B., Kamat, Ashish M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adjuvants, Immunologic - therapeutic use; Administration, Intravesical; BCG Vaccine - therapeutic use; Combined Modality Therapy; Genetic Therapy; Genitourinary Cancers (W Oh and M Galsky; Humans; Immunotherapy - methods; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Neoplasm Invasiveness; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local - immunology; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local - prevention & control; Oncology; Practice Guidelines as Topic; Section Editors; Topical Collection on Genitourinary Cancers; Treatment Outcome; Urinary Bladder Neoplasms - drug therapy; Urinary Bladder Neoplasms - immunology
• ISSN: 1527-2729; 1534-6277; 1534-5277
• DOI: 10.1007/s11864-014-0315-3

Opinion statement Non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) continues to be a challenging disease to manage. Treatment involves transurethral resection and, often, intravesical therapy. Appropriate patient selection, accurate staging, and morphological characterization are vital in risk-stratifying patients to those who would most benefit from receiving intravesical therapy. Bacillus of Calmette and Guérin (BCG) continues to be the first-line agent of choice for patients with intermediate- and high-risk NMIBC. Treatment should begin with the standard induction course of 6 weekly treatments. The inclusion of subsequent maintenance courses of BCG is imperative to optimal therapeutic response. While patients with intermediate-risk disease should receive 1 year of maintenance therapy, high-risk patients benefit from up to 3 years of maintenance therapy. BCG use should not be used in low-risk patients with de novo Ta, low-grade, solitary,