Bladder cancer: what’s new in 2017—2018

The paper reviews the basic avenues of research and the recent developments in clinical research. Bladder cancer remains a mystery disease, it puts oncologists and urologists a lot of questions that hard to answer. According to epidemiological data of 2017 bladder cancer incidence increased in Russia, and bladder cancer of the late stages was diagnosed in the large amount of patients in 2017: in 12.9 % of all patients with newly detected bladder cancer clinical stage III was diagnosed, and in 9.9 % of patients the cancer of the stage IV was diagnosed. The mortality among patients with newly diagnosed bladder cancer was 14.9 % in the 1st year after the disease diagnosis. Cancer research carried out in the last decades focused on the tumor biology, tumor pathogenesis and the development of new diagnostic and treatment methods. Clinical treatment results and biological characteristics of the tumor were compared and some practical conclusions were made. Comparative effectiveness of surgery, radiation therapy and drug therapy for cancer treatment was analyzed. Special attention was paid to the rate of complications developed immediately after the radical cystectomy and in 30 and 90 days after the surgery. This is the problem of great importance because the presence of complications has impact on the cost of the treatment. Clinical studies of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors effectiveness in patients with advanced urothelal cancer were described in the paper.

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