NEW YORK, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- A bladder cancer prediction model could reduce chemotherapy treatments without an increase in cancer recurrence rates, U.S. medical researchers said.
In a study, published online ahead of the Dec. 1 print issue of the journal Cancer, researchers found a prediction model which considered other factors besides how far the cancer had spread that could help make better chemotherapy decisions for bladder cancer patients.
Typically, chemotherapy has been recommended only for bladder cancer patients with higher-stage disease. However, a review of information for 4,462 surgical patients monitored for cancer found patients with more advanced stages of disease but without other risk factors -- such as a long time from diagnosis to treatment -- were actually at low-risk of recurrence and might not benefit from chemotherapy.
Study leader Andrew Vickers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York said some patients with less advanced stages of disease with other risk factors were actually at high risk of cancer recurrence.
The researchers concluded that for a drug that reduces the risk of cancer recurrence by 20 percent, use of the prediction model would, in effect, allow for 60 fewer chemotherapy treatments per 1,000 patients without any increase in cancer recurrence rates.
