Hyperthermia for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer.

ABSTRACT

Recurrent non muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) represents a therapeutic challenge, especially in the case of Bacillus Calmette Guerin (BCG)-failures. Chemohyperthermia (CHT) has been tested as adjuvant therapy in selected categories of patients with promising results. The aim of this systematic review is to explore the current role of CHT and its future perspectives. The review process was carried out following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) criteria. After the selection process, 30 articles were used in this review. Treatment with CHT is safe and quite well tolerated. CHT seems to be effective in low and intermediate risk bladder cancer. Moreover CHT could be offered to selected categories of high risk patients and BCG failures NMIBC. Further trials are needed in order to better identify the categories of patients which could benefit from this therapy and to standardise the right schedule of treatment.