Transurethral surgery in the treatment of invasive bladder cancer (T1 and T2).

Ninety-nine primary transitional cell bladder tumours of categories T1 or T2 were treated by transurethral resection. 25% of these patients experienced a true recurrence indicating that surgery failed to control the tumour locally. These patients had a 5-year survival of 20%. We suspect that many of them did not have local disease when treated. Twenty-five % of the total patient population did not within five years get a new tumour. They were cured by the first transurethral resection. 30% of the patients experienced new non-invasive tumour growth that could be managed by repeated resections. These two groups of patients did extremely well, since the 5-year survival was equivalent to the 5-year survival of an age and sex matched control population. Thus, more than 50% of the patients benefitted from transurethral surgery. Less than 20% experienced a new invasive tumour growth. They are patients at risk of getting a progressive bladder cancer disease. 5-year survival of these patients was about 50%. We conclude that transitional cell bladder tumours of category T1 and some of category T2 are well treated by transurethral resection.