Perioperative therapies for urological cancers

Abstract

Although surgery with curative intent is critical for management of many localized cancers, multimodal therapy including neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapy has been introduced to increase the effectiveness of local control of surgery and prolong survival. However, strong evidence supporting the utility of such multimodal therapy is limited. The utility of perioperative chemotherapy has been extensively investigated in bladder cancer, and several randomized controlled trials have indicated the benefit of neoadjuvant cisplatin-based chemotherapy in muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Regrettably, perioperative therapy for other urological cancers is controversial; therefore, no definitive conclusions have been drawn. Recently, the number of trials has rapidly increased due to the development of immune checkpoint inhibitors, used alone or in combination with other modalities. In this review, we summarize the current status and supporting evidence for perioperative therapies such as neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapies for urological cancers, including prostate cancer, urothelial cancer and renal cell carcinoma.

Keywords: bladder cancer; perioperative therapy; prostate cancer; renal cell carcinoma; upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma.