William U. Shipley, MD

Decades of experience now exist to support the use of chemoradiotherapy in the treatment of muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Chemoradiotherapy for T1 tumors that recur following bacillus Calmette-Guérin therapy is promising and provides an important curative alternative for those unable or unwilling to undergo radical cystectomy.

Drs. Fernando and Sandler havewritten a thorough review thathas documented why a bladder-conserving therapy can now bemore widely accepted treatment for patientswith muscle-invading bladdercancer. They have shown that this treatmentapproach, while selective, doeshave a high likelihood of eradicatingthe primary tumor, preserving good organfunction, and not compromisingpatient survival. These successful approacheshave evolved over the past 25years following initial reports of theeffectiveness of cisplatin against transitionalcell carcinoma and then reportsof added efficacy when cisplatinis given concurrently with radiation.

In this two-part article, Krieg and Hoffman review the management of patients with cancer of the penis and those with cancer of the urethra, respectively. Both of these cancers are uncommon, and, when they present as small, early, circumscribed lesions, both can be cured (with organ preservation) by radiation therapy. Also following organ preservation by radiation therapy, these patients must continue to be followed closely because 25% to 35% will develop a local recurrence and can be cured by prompt salvage surgery.

Over the past 10 years, the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group has evaluated, by Phase III trials, the value of using a combination regimen, including androgen suppression (goserelin [Zoladex] and flutamide [Eulexin]) and radiation therapy, in locally advanced prostate cancer. Androgen suppression prior to or during radiation has not been shown to increase overall survival, but it has been shown to increase progression-free survival and freedom from distant metastases. In addition, a subset of men with poorly differentiated tumors who received goserelin following external beam radiation have had a significant overall survival benefit at 5 years’ follow-up. [Oncol News Int 6(Suppl 3):19-20, 1997]

Radical radiation therapy and radical prostatectomy are the two most commonly employed therapeutic alternatives for clinically localized (T1-T2,NX,M0) prostate cancer. A vigorous debate is ongoing about the relative efficacy of each modality. This debate centers around the percentage of patients who cannot be cured by one method or the other, suggesting that some patients may be better served by one treatment, or by some form of combined-modality therapy employing radiation after surgery or neoadjuvant androgen suppression before radiation.