Federico A. Corica, MD

This is a timely review on thecurrent status of selective bladderpreservation for muscleinvasivebladder cancer. Although controversial,the concept is extremely attractiveto patients, and evidence fromretrospective and/or small series demonstrateits efficacy. Most of these trials,however, have included highlyselected patients. Unfortunately, thereare few, if any, ongoing randomizedcontrolled trials comparing radical cystectomyto bladder-preserving protocols.Although the overall 5-yearsurvival rate for radical cystectomy andtrimodality therapy is approximately50%, patients with pure T2 disease frequentlyachieve 5-year survival ratesapproaching 70%.[1-3] While it is clearlybeyond the scope of this editorial togo into an in-depth analysis of all thestudies reported to date, several significantquestions remain.