Doctors Aim to Preserve Bladder Function for Cancer Patients

• As a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, Fox Chase Cancer Center offers our patients the most advanced treatment options through clinical trials, many of which are not readily available elsewhere. Our nationally ranked doctors specialize in the development of these studies — specifically Phase 1 and 2 Trials.

  This month, we are highlighting a Phase 2 Clinical Trial for patients diagnosed with muscle invasive bladder cancer that will be led by Daniel M. Geynisman, MD, a medical oncologist at Fox Chase who specializes in genitourinary cancers.

  

  The purpose of the clinical trial is to find out if chemotherapy with accelerated methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin, and cisplatin (AMVAC) given before another combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy to the bladder can improve the cure rate of the cancer; if AMVAC and chemoradiation therapy will allow doctors to cure the cancer while preserving bladder function; and if there are markers or special characteristics in the cancer tissue that go along with response to treatment and survival.

  Approximately 40 male and female patients over the age of 18 years with primary or predominantly urothelial carcinoma of the bladder will participate in this study. Patients must also have a history of invasion of the muscular layer of the bladder called the muscularis propria, no evidence of lymph node positivity or metastatic disease, and the disease must be in clinical stages T2-T4a.

  Learn more about clinical trials and bladder cancer treatment offered at Fox Chase.