Pattern of failure and survival of patients with metastatic urothelial tumors relapsing after cisplatinum-based chemotherapy

Cis-platinum-based chemotherapy combinations have improved the outcome of patients with metastatic urothelial tumors, since two-thirds of these patients respond to treatment. Nevertheless, the majority of such patients have relapse within a median of 12 months. To define the pattern of failure and subsequent outcome, we retrospectively assessed 58 consecutive patients with relapse after prior response to cis-platinum-based combination chemotherapy. Of the patients who presented initially with local-regional metastases, 74% had relapse with involvement of a similar site, while only 26% of these patients had visceral metastases at relapse. The median survival after relapse was 9 months, and parameters associated with longer survival were local-regional relapse (10.7 months) and response to salvage chemotherapy (12.6 months). These data suggest that select patients with urothelial tumors and local-regional metastases may benefit from consolidation therapy with surgery or radiotherapy after maximum response to chemotherapy.