Challenging standard therapy for bladder and aerodigestive cancers

Studies revealing important advances in the treatment of cancers of the bladder and aerodigestive tract were reported recently at the 37th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology [San Francisco, US; May 2001]. In the first study, median survival nearly doubled in patients with locally advanced bladder cancer who were treated with chemotherapy before surgical removal of the bladder, compared with patients treated with surgery alone, the current standard of care. A second study has shown that patients with locally advanced cancer of the larynx treated simultaneously with chemotherapy and radiotherapy preserve the use of their larynx significantly longer than patients treated with traditional therapy. Finally, the addition of a short course of chemotherapy before surgery results in a significant improvement in survival in patients with oesophageal cancer, compared with surgery alone.