[Bladder cancer: chemotherapy of advanced bladder cancer].

Chemotherapy of advanced bladder cancer aims to destroy all the cancer cells in the host. For this purpose the most suitable and effective anticancer agents should be chosen. There have been many methods to select the anti-cancer drugs: sensitivity test. However, no reliable tests are available. We developed new anti-cancer sensitivity test, using the radio-active nucleic acids precursors; C14-Formate and C14-Adenine. This test revealed that Cisplatin, Adriamycin, and Mitomycin C were the most potent for the transitional cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder. Chemotherapy with a single agent was disappointing. Combined use of these agents was rather promising. Among them combination of cis-platin with Adriamycin and/or cyclophosphamide was the most effective. However, the overall response rate was reported around 50%. Multi-disciplinary treatment including surgery, irradiation, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy was disclosed to be useful for the treatment of bladder cancer. Since 1977 25 cases were treated with this mode of therapy in our clinic. Anti-tumor effect was remarkable. The categories, disappeared, and over 50% decrease of the mass, were found in 96% of the patients. Also, down-staging was demonstrated in 20% of the cases. Histologically no cancer cells were found in the surgical specimens of 3 cases and no viable cancer cells in 3 cases respectively. From these results it is now assumed that multi-disciplinary treatment is promising for the treatment of bladder cancer.