Aims and background: Intravesical instillations commonly follow resection, when all visible lesions have been removed, making impossible any direct assessment of efficacy. The study was conceived to evaluate the ablative effect on the tumor and the efficacy in reducing the risk of recurrence of short schedule intravesical chemotherapy administered before endoscopic resection.
Study design: Four weekly intravesical instillations of mitomycin C followed by transurethral resection (TUR) were administered to 31 patients with recurrent small volume superficial bladder cancer.
Results: At TUR no evidence of disease was found in 22 patients (70.9%) and residual disease in the remaining 9 (29.1%). At a median follow-up of 15 months (range, 3-33) 16 of 31 patients (51.6%) had recurrence of disease. The treatment was well tolerated.
Conclusions: Short-schedule intravesical chemotherapy can completely ablate small volume recurrent superficial bladder cancer in a relevant number of patients but is probably not sufficient to obtain long-term prophylaxis.