Abstract
INTRODUCTION:Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is recommended for localized muscle-invasive bladder cancer when patients are fit for cisplatin-based chemotherapy. A pathological complete response can be observed, corresponding to ypT0N0 stage on the radical cystectomy specimen. This review discusses the incidence, prognosis and potential therapeutic impact of complete response on pathological specimen in NAC treated patients.METHODS:A comprehensive review of the literature was conducted using Medline database, with no time frame. The articles were selected using the following keywords association: "Bladder cancer" (Mesh) AND "Neoadjuvant chemotherapy" (Mesh) AND "pT0" (Mesh).RESULTS:After NAC, ypT0N0 rates vary from 9 to 46% among the series, reported rates that are higher compared to those of pT0 without NAC administration. The incidence depends on the chemotherapy regimen (maximal local effect with cisplatin-based chemotherapy) and the pathological type of the disease (presence of variant histologies). Molecular analyses of bladder cancer could probably help in the near future to identify and predict NAC responders. Pathological complete response is associated with a favorable prognosis in terms of recurrence-free and overall survival. Nevertheless, disease recurrences are still observed in 10-15% of cases, which underlies the importance of local treatment and close follow-up even in these patients.CONCLUSION:ypT0N0 rate is approximately 25% after NAC, that is 4.3 higher than after bladder resection alone. The prognosis is better than that with residual tumor on specimen and is comparable to that of pT0 without NAC administration.