Bladder Cancer Can Gain From Sustained-Release Chemotherapy

As reported by a study, a novel, sustained-release chemotherapy delivery device which is inserted in the bladder has gone on to facilitate the tumour response. The treatment was given to patients in the elderly bracket who had advanced bladder cancer and were medically unfit for standard treatment to take place.

TAR-200, the Intravesical device, provides consistent, low-dose, and local delivery of gemcitabine chemotherapy. It is proven to be mostly safe, well tolerated, and to have noteworthy and beneficial effects on the outcome of bladder cancer. The drug delivery device’s objective is to limit the cancer’s growth and progression while also putting a considerable limit on chemotherapy’s toxic effects.

In the phase 1 study, patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer were analysed; there were 24 men and 11 women, to be precise, with a median age of 84 years. Apparently, all the individuals were suffering from transurethral resection of bladder tumours so as to remove the visible cancer.

Once implanted in the patient, the silicone tube, i.e., the drug delivery device, released gemcitabine over a period of 21 days. Another process was performed to take out and replace the device for a total of four treatments that spanned 84 days.

Notably, 11 out of 35 patients had an absolute tumour response to TAR-200. On follow-up, no evidence of bladder cancer was found in these patients. Another 3 patients happened to have a partial response, with an overall response rate going up to 40%. When considering the median overall survival rate, it came to 37 months. That compared to a 12 total survival rate that was found in previous studies where muscle-invasive bladder cancer did not get the curative-intent treatment.

Of the 14 patients that had lasting responses when it came to the TAR-200 treatment, more than 70% were free from progressive bladder cancer at 12 months after the treatment. The total observed clinical response to TAR-200 was indeed robust as well as durable across patients with curative-limited treatment options that were very limited, as per the authors of the study.