Long-term outcomes of a cascading salvage strategy for high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To report long-term oncological outcomes of patients with high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (HR-NMIBC) undergoing bladder-sparing therapy (BST) after bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) failure.

Patients and methods

We retrospectively reviewed patients with HR-NMIBC treated from 2000 to 2025 with intravesical therapies after BCG failure, all of whom received salvage gemcitabine/docetaxel (Gem/Doce). Subsequent BST included valrubicin/docetaxel, sequential doxorubicin/gemcitabine alternating with mitomycin-C/docetaxel, and gemcitabine/cabazitaxel with pembrolizumab. Kaplan-Meier analysis estimated recurrence-free survival (RFS), progression-free survival (PFS), cystectomy-free survival (CFS), and cancer-specific survival (CSS).

Results

A total of 85 pat

SUBMITTER: McElree IM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12789842 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature