Panelists Raoul S. Concepcion, MD; Michael S. Cookson, MD, MMHC; and Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, describe the challenges in muscle-invasive bladder cancer and the factors impacting their initial treatment approach through a case-based discussion.

Patients with metastatic bladder cancer have few treatment options after failure of chemotherapy until now.

In early May, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the immunological drug Atezolizumab to treat metastatic bladder cancer. The decision came following results of an international multi-site phase II clinical study published in the March 4 edition of the Lancet. Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus was one of the largest sites involved in the study.

Dr. Richard W. Joseph,, Mayo Clinic oncologist involved in the study, says the drug works by helping the patient’s own immune system fight cancer.

“Bladder cancer is the ninth most common cancer, causing 165,000 deaths worldwide annually,” says Dr. Joseph, whose research is part of the Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy Program within the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center.

Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) immunotherapy is the standard care for patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). However, up to fifty percent of patients have reoccurrence of tumours or further progression to invasive disease within five years. Randy Sweis, MD, of the University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago, IL, speaks at the 2019 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, held in San Francisco, CA, and details how by examining the urine microbiome of patients and specifically biomarkers within the urine microbiome, one can begin to predict responses to the BCG therapy, as well as potentially predicting further immune responses to the treatment and more generally, bladder cancer.

Join Dianne Zipursky Quale, Dr. Jill Hamilton Reeves, and Laura Pole as they discuss eating healthy with bladder cancer.

Learn about the basic differences between men and women in bladder cancer, and the risk factors women have specifically for bladder cancer.

Bladder cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the United States and ninth most common worldwide. While the FDA approved the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) cancer vaccine in 1990 for the treatment of superficial, non-invasive bladder cancer, oncologists today are excited about a new class of immunotherapies called immune checkpoint inhibitors. New immunotherapies have significantly reduced the risk of recurrence for bladder cancer while also increasing the percentage of patients who see a complete response post-surgery. Dr. Matthew Galsky, of The Tisch Cancer Institute, discusses the potential to further improve outcomes for patients with this disease and answers questions from the audience. We will discuss how oncologists predict patient response to immunotherapies, common mutations in bladder cancer, length of treatment, and other topics. Don’t forget to submit your questions to Dr. Galsky.