Abstract
BACKGROUND: Although radical cystectomy (RC) is the clinical practice guideline-recommended treatment of muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), bladder-sparing trimodality therapy (TMT) has emerged as a valid treatment option. Findings comparing the survival outcomes for MIBC patients who underwent RC and TMT are inconclusive. OBJECTIVE: We designed a large hospital-based multicohort study to compare the effectiveness of TMT with RC. METHODS: Information on deaths was jointly retrieved from EMR (electronic medical record), cause of death registry, and chronic disease surveillance as well as study-specific questionnaire. To avoid the systematical difference between patients who received two modalities, RC-MIBC cohort was propensity score-matched to TMT-MIBC cohort, and the Cox proportional hazard regression was used to calculate the overall survival (OS) and disease-specific survival (DSS). RESULTS: There were 891 MIBC patients treated with RC and another 891 MIBC patients who underwent with TMT in the propensity score matching. Comparable effectiveness between two modalities was observed for DSS (HR, 1.20; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.94 to 1.49) and OS (HR, 1.17; 95% CI, 0.91 to 1.43) according to multiple adjustment after a median follow-up of approximately 9.3 years. However, a relatively higher mortality rate around 5 years after TMT treatment was found compared to RC (HR, 1.26; 95% CI, 1.01 to 1.53). The respective 5-year OS rates were 69% and 73% for TMT cohort and RC cohort, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings supported that MIBC patients with TMT yielded survival outcomes comparable to MIBC patients who underwent RC overall. Treatment options should be suggested considering patients' age and willingness.