Small cell carcinoma of the bladder

Abstract

We retrospectively reviewed the records of 11 patients with small cell carcinoma of the bladder, who were diagnosed at Kyoto University Hospital between June 1995 and November 2010. The median age was 79 years. Two patients had stage I disease, 4 had stage II disease, 2 had stage III disease, and 3 had stage IV disease. All 3 patients with stage IV disease had metastatic disease. They had very poor prognosis with a median survival of only 9.1 months (range 3.2-13.0 months). Of 8 patients without metastatic disease, 3 patients who had been treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by cystectomy had longterm survival. The median survival of these 3 patients was 85.5 months (range 38.0-102.8 mondis), and all of them are still alive without cancer. The median survival of the other 5 patients was 12.6 months (range 9. 9-33. 8 months). There were significant differences in survival between patients with neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by cystectomy and with other treatments (p = 0.024). In conclusion, these results suggested that neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by cystectomy could cure patients with small cell carcinoma of the bladder without metastatic disease.