Methodologies for quantifying the results of intravesical chemotherapy of superficial tumors of the bladder.

Various evaluation methods exist to report results of installation therapy on superficial urinary bladder cancer. The following three, based on material previously gathered from 30 patients treated with adriamycin instillations, are analysed in this study: (1) The graphic expression method which covers the most necessary details, but demands space and does not permit adequate statistical analysis. (2) Evaluating the terms usually used in oncology, i.e. complete response (CR), partial response (PR), total response (TR), no change and progression. These are suitable for statistical analysis and are of crucial relevance in the study of carcinoma in situ TIS. In Ta-1 cancers however, these terms (CR, etc.) are not descriptive of time, and since their results depend completely on the choice of endpoints they do not permit realistic statistical analysis. (3) Determining indices (Ri/m, Ri/c) and recurrence rates (RR, MARR, MTBR) in Ta-1 cancers. These factors take into consideration both the time variable and multicentricity in space and time, making rigorous statistical analysis possible. In our opinion Ri/c states most accurately a patient's clinical course.