Mitomycin

I found this at NCBI about the single dose (mitomycin..etc) after TUR...I'm thinking my doc was on top of this...it might be worth discussing with your docs before surgery...I don't remember him telling me beforehand (tho I'm sure I signed SOMETHING about chemotherapy ) about the mitomycin...I only knew afterwards...

J Urol. 2005 Apr;173(4):1433; author reply 1433.

A single immediate postoperative instillation of chemotherapy decreases the risk of recurrence in patients with stage Ta T1 bladder cancer: a meta-analysis of published results of randomized clinical trials.


Here is the whole link

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15126782



My protocol has been single mitoymycin after each TUR (2) and then BCG'sx6

Thanks Wendy,
Okay, so this google of mine was about a standard blood test? That is making sense. Thanks so much for explaining that to me.

Hi Rosemary,

I've known a number of folks receiving Mitomycin after TUR's but it's still not standard as far as I can tell. There are reasons to think that perhaps it should be...

Your other question, cytology tests can detect abnormal cells including cancer cells. If negative, no malignant cells were found; if positive, then that's not so good. However, cytololgy tests are not 100% infallible, unfortunately, especially is the cancer is of low or intermediate grade. Luckily it's more reliable when detecting high grade tumors and/or CIS.

I've also read that results may differ from lab to lab, which means there is some room for improvement. It's still a standard test though, the newer urine marker tests like FISH and NMP22 have only recently been approved and need a lot more study. I'd say using one of those in addition to cytolology is probably worth the time and extra cost (not all that much considering).

Your last post in this thread is about blood markers, this has been studied for many other cancers, those markers you cite are used in breast, ovarian, colo-rectal cancer and more. But till now none of the tumor markers have been used for bladder cancer, this study is breaking new ground for us and I'm glad to see it. A blood test is much less invasive than so many othet tests out there.

Take care, and all the best with your BCG treatments.
Wendy

I wasn't getting a response here...so, I googled a partial answer to cytology...
I still don't know what a negative cytology indicates....

this is an April 2006 report...I half-way understand it....

Institute of Urology, Rabin Medical Center - Beilinson Campus, Petach Tikva, Israel. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

PURPOSE: We assessed the value of preoperative levels of CEA, CA-125 or CA 19-9 in patients with clinically organ confined bladder cancer to predict pathological extravesical and/or node positive disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Serum levels of CEA, CA-125 and CA 19-9 were measured prospectively in all patients scheduled for cystectomy for clinically organ confined bladder cancer between September 1999 and May 2004. Biomarker expression was compared between patients with pathologically organ confined disease (pT2 or less, pN0) and patients with extravesical disease (greater than pT2, or pN1 or greater), and between patients with pathologically node negative (any pT, pN0) and node positive disease (any pT, pN1 or greater). RESULTS: Of the 91 patients enrolled, 46 had (51%) pathologically organ confined tumors, 45 (49%) had extravesical disease and 17 (19%) had positive lymph nodes. Preoperative serum levels of all markers were significantly higher in cases of extravesical disease than in organ confined disease. On multivariate analysis CEA with an odds ratio of 8.6 (95% CI 1.51-48.6) and CA-125 with an OR of 29.5 (95% CI 3.6-242.6) proved independent predictors of extravesical disease. CA-125 and CA 19-9 levels were significantly higher in patients with node positive disease than in those with node negative disease. On multivariate analysis CA-125 with an OR of 22.2 (95% CI 3.8-129) and CA 19-9 with an OR of 5.2 (95% CI 1.09-24.76) proved independent predictors of node positive disease. CONCLUSIONS: Increase in serum tumor markers before cystectomy in patients with clinically organ confined muscle invasive bladder cancer is a strong indicator of the presence of extravesical and node positive disease.

I didn't pose that question correctly...

Cytology is not an indicator and not a non-indicator...so what is it?

Did anyone else have mytomcin washes after their TURB's? I had mytomycin at initial and then for the follow up TURB.

Soon after 3rd biopsy, we began BCG's .

I've read on internet that alternation of mitomycin and BCG could potentiate the action of each...asked Super Doc about this and he said there were no studies to substantiate this...

Another question...

Cytology...if it is negative it is not an indicator of cancer, but if it is positive it is an indicator???? :-?