How Octogenarians with Bladder Cancer Are Treated in a Maximum-Care Hospital: The Real-Life Experience

Abstract

Introduction: With increasing life expectancy, curative treatment of octogenarians with urothelial carcinoma of the bladder (UCB) becomes more important. Materials and Methods: The treatment modalities of 276 octogenarians with UCB who were treated at the University Hospital of Erlangen between 1982 and 2011 were assessed retrospectively. Results: One hundred forty-six patients had non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) while 71 had muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). No data was available for 59 patients. Eighty-five (58.2%) of the 146 patients with NMIBC received transurethral resection of the bladder tumor (TURBT) only, another 38 patients (26%) underwent additional intravesical therapy; and 8.9% were treated with radiochemotherapy (RCT), 4.1% with radiotherapy (RT), 1.4% with systemic chemotherapy and 1.4% with radical cystectomy (RC). Of the 71 patients suffering from MIBC, 39 (54.9%) received TURBT alone. A potentially curative therapy was performed on 31 of the 71 patients with MIBC (43.7%). Of these, 16 patients (51.6%) received RCT, 9 patients (29.0%) RT and 6 patients (19.4%) RC. In Kaplan-Meier analysis, patients with MIBC had better median overall survival with curative treatment compared to TURBT alone (28 vs. 9 months; p < 0.001, log-rank test). Conclusions: By offering a wide range of treatment options, over 43% of octogenarians with MIBC received a curative therapy at a maximum care hospital.