Cancer is a journey and there are many places to stop to get nourishment – you just have to be willing to take it.
Immunotherapy has been a fizzy topic in the field of bladder cancer over the last couple of years. However, according to a Food and Drug Administration (FDA), patients with metastatic bladder cancer disease may need to have their treatment altered.
After analysis of 2 clinical trials, the FDA warned against the frontline use of Keytruda or Tecentriq in patients with advanced stage. There’s no doubt that we are going to see more patients receiving immunotherapy as monotherapy for bladder cancer.
But the most exciting part that we all want to see the use immunotherapy now perhaps in some novel settings to change the outcome.
A Curse That Affects the Bladder!!
The bladder is a hollow, flexible pouch in the pelvis. Its main job is to store urine before it leaves the body. Bladder cancer occurs in the tissues of the bladder and its function to store urine getting hampered.
Though it seems to be a rare disease, according to the National Institutes of Health, approximately 45,000 men per year are diagnosed with the disease.
Causes of Bladder Cancer!!
The actual cause of bladder cancer is still unknown. However, there are some reasons can be included-
- Smoking
- Working around harmful chemicals
- Taking certain diabetes medications
- Irregular Lifestyles
- Drinking too much
- Less Water Intake
Major Symptoms of Bladder Cancer!!
- Being unable to urinate
- Lower back pain on one side
- Loss of appetite and weight loss
- Feeling tired or weak
- Swelling in the feet
- Bone pain
Diagnoses of Bladder Cancer!!
There are several techniques by which bladder cancer can be detected such as-
- Cystoscopy- In this method, your doctor inserts a narrow tube (cystoscope) along with the lens through the urethra. This lens allows your doctor to see the inside of your bladder, to examine any signs of disease.
- Biopsy-In this case, your doctor may pass a special tool into your bladder to collect a cell sample (biopsy) for testing.
- Urine Cytology-It is the technique where the sample of your urine is analyzed under a microscope to check for cancer cells.
- Imaging Tests-Imaging tests, such as CT urogram or retrograde pyelogram, allow your doctor to examine the structures of your urinary tract.
Bladder Cancer can be cured by Immunotherapy!!
Most cases of bladder cancer which are caught relatively early can be treated with immunotherapy. Furthermore-
- With the advancement of immunotherapy, you can avoid to do a cystectomy and using chemotherapy.
- Immunotherapy controls this disease in situ by creating the immune recognition senses to get cures and long-term complete responses in patients.
- However, in platinum-refractory settings, you will be able to revisit immunotherapy in combination with some additional targets.
- Now-a-days, in case of curing of bladder cancer, PD-1 and PD-L1 have been established as a standard method that will be building off in the future rather than cisplatinum-based regimens.
- For patients who are not eligible to receive cisplatinum-based therapy, those patients should be receiving gemcitabine instead of immunotherapy.
More Attention Need to Given on Immunotherapy!!
However, platinum-refractory settings or checkpoint inhibitors have been taken, there’s a lot of work to be done-
- There’s still the 70% to 75% of patients who don’t respond to a PD-1, PD-L1 inhibitor.
- And there is a need to figure out how to get them responsive.
- We need to understand what to add to the checkpoint inhibitors for the more helpful effects.
- We also need to understand how to use these in earlier disease settings.
Advance Immunotherapy Is Worship For Sure!!
Immunotherapy has undoubtedly reduced the risk of recurrence for bladder cancer. However, it also increases the percentage of this life-threating disease among those patients who see a complete response post-surgery. Investigational bladder cancer immunotherapies train the body’s immune system to recognize bladder cancer cells.
And it leads to further improve outcomes for patients with this disease.
