Neoadjuvant chemohyperthermia: Our experience after 10 years

Neoadjuvant chemohyperthermia (QHT) with MMC has demonstrated its efficacy in NMIBC both in the level of complete response at the time of TURBT and reduction of recurrences after several years of follow up. We present our experience with this treatment. METHODS: We performed a case control study in a group of 104 patients with middle-high risk NMIBC. 43 of them received neoadjuvant recirculated intravesical QHT and 61 passively administered standard adjuvant MMC. Patient follow up was 43 months (3 - 108) evaluating their clinical efficacy and adverse effects in both groups. RESULTS: After neoadjuvant QHT, 27 patients showed CR (63%), 13 PR (30.2%) and 3 NR (6.9%). 5 year recurrence rate after QHT passive MMC were 16.2% and 26.2% respectively. No patient in the QHT group presented tumor progression compared to 5% progressions in the group treated with MMC at room temperature and 1.6% deaths due to metastatic disease. 94% QHT programmed doses were administered in comparison to 97% in the group of standard MMC. In the QHT group there were 60.5% grade 1-2 AEs in comparison with 49% in the standard MMC group (p<0.4). Likewise, 9.3% cases in the QHT group presented Grade 3 AEs versus 6.5% in the standard MMC (p<0,06). CONCLUSIONS: Recirculating neoadjuvant QHT achieves a reduction in tumor recurrence after 4 years with a similar AE rate in comparison with passive instillation of MMC.