Surgical treatment for clinical node-positive bladder cancer patients treated with radical cystectomy without neoadjuvant chemotherapy

Objective: Growing literature supports good survival expectancies in bladder cancer (BCa) patients affected by clinical node metastases (cN+) treated with multimodal therapy. We evaluated the role of adjuvant chemotherapy in cN+BCa patients treated with radical cystectomy (RC) and pelvic lymph node dissection (PLND) without neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). Methods: We evaluated a total of 192 patients with BCa and cN+. All patients were treated with RC and PLND without NAC between 2001 and 2013. Kaplan–Meier analyses and Cox regression analyses were used to assess the impact of adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) on recurrence, cancer-specific mortality (CSM) and overall mortality (OM) after surgery. Results: Overall, 99 patients (51.6%) were found without node metastases at RC, while 18 (9.4%), 58 (30.2%) and 17 (8.9%) patients were found pN1, pN2 and pN3, respectively. With a median follow-up of 48 months, in cN+ patients we recorded 5-year recurrence, CSM and OM of 55, 53 and 51%, respectively. Overall, 36 (18.8%) patients were treated with adjuvant chemotherapy. At univariable analyses, ACT was associated with improved overall survival [Hazard ratio (HR): 0.42, confidence interval (CI) 0.20–0.86, p = 0.02) in pN+ subgroup only. These results were confirmed at multivariable analyses, where ACT was associated with improved CSS (HR: 0.45, CI 0.21–0.89, p = 0.03) and OS (HR: 0.37, CI 0.17–0.81, p = 0.01). Conclusions: We report good survival outcomes in cN+ patients treated with RC. The use of ACT after surgery increases survival expectancies, especially in those patients with pathological node disease. Our data need to be further evaluated in prospective setting.