Investigating Bladder Chemotherapy Instead of Surgery for Low Risk Bladder Cancer

Overview

Patients diagnosed with low risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) are at risk of frequent low grade recurrence, which usually necessitates surgical intervention under general anaesthetic. This multicentre study aims to establish the short term efficacy of chemoresection using chemotherapy within the bladder for the treatment of NMIBC. Should the levels of complete response following chemoresection meet predefined criteria, a larger phase III trial would be developed to assess longer term disease related endpoints, with the aim of standardising management of recurrent low risk NMIBC and potentially removing the need for over a thousand patients each year to undergo surgery.

CALIBER is a two stage phase II, multicentre, randomised controlled trial (RCT). A control group has been included to provide prospective data about surgical management and outcomes and assess feasibility of recruitment to a randomised study. Stage 1: 80 patients will be recruited with treatment allocated 2:1 by randomisation between chemoresection and surgical management. Stage 2: If the stop/go activity criteria at the end of stage 1 indicate that recruitment should continue, 9 additional participants will be recruited, all of whom will receive chemoresection. Patients assigned to the chemoresection group will receive 4 once weekly intravesical instillations of 40mg Mitomycin C (MMC) as outpatients. This treatment will be delivered via catheter under local anaesthetic. Patients assigned to the surgical management group will receive the standard surgical management in use at their hospital for treatment of recurrence which may include a single post-operative installation of 40mg MMC within 24 hours. All participants will be followed up at 3 weeks from the start of treatment (ie at time of final MMC instillation for chemoresection group) and each will receive a cystoscopy three months from the end of treatment to assess response, in accordance with European Association of Urology (EAU) guidelines. Subsequent cystoscopic follow up will take place 12 months after treatment if recurrence-free at 3 months and then annually.