Free Republic

Research led by Alberto Martini, MD, that found using antihistamines in patients receiving second-line immunotherapy (IO) for bladder cancer may improve outcomes. The research focused on metastatic urothelial carcinoma (mUC), cancer that begins in the urothelial cells, which line the urethra, bladder, ureters and some other organs. Martini, served as corresponding author of the study. Using data from two clinical trials, the researchers identified 896 patients who were treated with second-line IO drug atezolizumab. Out of those patients, 155 patients received concomitant antihistamines and 741 did not. Antihistamine users had 41% lower risk for all-cause mortality, 42% lower risk for...

A research team has shown that combining pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy drug, with standard chemotherapy can improve treatment outcomes for patients with small cell bladder cancer and small cell/neuroendocrine prostate cancer. Small cell carcinomas can arise in various tissues—including the bladder, prostate, lung, ovaries and breast—and are known for their rapid progression, tendency to relapse after initial treatment and poor overall survival rates. The survival time for patients with advanced small cell bladder cancer is only about 7 to 13 months and only 7 to 9 months for patients with small cell/neuroendocrine prostate cancer. The early-stage study showed that using pembrolizumab...

Findings from the international FORT-2 clinical trial showed a combination treatment including immunotherapy is safe and tolerable in patients with locally advanced or metastatic bladder cancer. In urothelial bladder cancer, increased T cell infiltration has been correlated with longer patient survival. In many cases, fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) mutations are known to be drivers of bladder cancer development and progression. "In 2016, we published studies showing that the tumors with FGFR3 mutations have no T cell infiltration, which led to the logical conclusion that blocking the FGFR pathway could make more patients responsive to immunotherapy," said Sweis. Previous clinical...

A cancer drug duo more than doubled the survival of people battling the most common form of advanced bladder cancer, trial results show. Patients who took a combo of meds called EV+P—enfortumab vedotin and pembrolizumab (Keytruda)—had an average of 31.5 months survival, compared to just over 16 months for those on standard chemotherapy, researchers reported. "This is revolutionary for patients," said Dr. Jean Hoffman-Censits. "It's a practice-changing study, where we're nearly doubling the overall survival for patients with locally advanced and metastatic urothelial cancer," she said in a news release. Urothelial tumors are the most common form of bladder cancer....

— Increased risk described as "modest," and no association seen with aggressiveness of cancer i> Exposure to Agent Orange was associated with a modestly increased risk of bladder cancer among Vietnam War veterans, according to a retrospective cohort study. Among over 2.5 million male veterans, exposure to Agent Orange was associated with a relative 4% higher risk of bladder cancer (HR 1.04, 95% CI 1.02-1.06, P<0.001), reported Stephen Williams, MD, MBA, of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, and colleagues. "These results support prior investigations and further support bladder cancer to be designated as an Agent Orange-associated disease,"...

An on-going, worldwide shortage of bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) means that many patients with a common and serious type of bladder cancer have limited access to this effective standard of care treatment. But for the first time in almost 50 years, there appears to be a viable treatment alternative. A new study finds that a safe, inexpensive combo-chemotherapy is better tolerated than BCG and is better at preventing high-grade cancer recurrence in patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). Bladder cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the U.S., and NMIBC accounts for about 75% of bladder cancer cases. High-risk...

Giving people with bladder cancer chemotherapy and radiotherapy at the same time helps stop cancer from coming back. The findings demonstrate the benefit of combining chemotherapy and radiotherapy to reduce the risk of the disease returning is maintained over 10 years. Treating bladder cancer often involves surgery to remove the bladder—known as a cystectomy. However, patients are often too unwell to undergo surgery and it can lead to serious side effects, usually resulting in patients wearing a drainage bag to collect urine. Combining radiotherapy and chemotherapy is an alternative treatment, cutting the risk of recurrence and sparing patients from invasive...

Adding an anti-inflammatory medication to immunotherapy and standard chemotherapy drugs may provide long-term suppression of aggressive bladder tumor growth, according to a proof-of-concept study. The researchers' previous work, led by Keith Syson Chan, Ph.D. found that the combined use of the chemotherapy drugs gemcitabine and cisplatin is unable to activate a patient's own immune response to cancer. They also found that chemotherapy prompts the overwhelming release of an inhibitory signal, or brake, that suppresses an immune response by counteracting "go" signals. When the investigators added the anti-inflammatory drug celecoxib to gemcitabine to remove the brake, they were able to shift...

Pooled data from six case-control studies suggest that higher consumption of tap water-based drinks may slightly increase the risk of bladder cancer among men. The increased risk of bladder cancer with tap water consumption was "consistently found in all six studies, making chance an unlikely explanation," write investigators in the International Journal of Cancer. They caution, however, that for now, the study finding that tap water "is associated with a slight increased risk of bladder cancer" does not readily translate into public health recommendations. The results are based on 2,749 bladder cancer cases and 5,150 cancer-free controls. Most of the...