Abstract
BACKGROUND/AIM: The current standard of care for first-line treatment of locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma (UC) is platinum-based combination chemotherapy. Recently, immune checkpoint inhibitors have been reported to be effective for UC. Knowing whether immunotherapy or chemotherapy is suitable as first-line treatment is beneficial for patients. A retrospective study was conducted on the clinical outcomes of Japanese patients who received three or more courses of first-line chemotherapy for metastatic UC to assess the outcome of conventional treatments in real clinical situation. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients who received first-line chemotherapy between August 2009 and December 2019 were included. Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were assessed. RESULTS: The median PFS and OS were 7.1 and 27.1 months, respectively, for patients with no disease progression at the end of three courses. Of 28 patients, 25 (89.3%) received second-line drug therapy and 10 (35.7%) received focal therapy for disease control. Patients with focal therapy had significantly longer OS than those without focal therapy (p=0.019, log-rank test). CONCLUSION: OS of metastatic UC at our Institution is relatively long, suggesting that aggressive second-line drug therapy and focal therapy may have contributed to such result.