Second-line chemotherapy with gemcitabine and cisplatin for urothelial cancer previously treated with or resistant to M-VAC therapy

We evaluated the efficacy of gemcitabine-cisplatin (GC) therapy as a second line chemotherapy for recurrent urothelial cancer previously treated with or resistant to methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin and cisplatin (M-VAC) therapy. Four patients who had recurrent cancer after adjuvant M-VAC therapy and five patients with resistant lesions to M-VAC were treated by GC. Of the nine patients, three completely responded to GC and three obtained partial response. These complete responders were cancer-free for 34, 32 and 24 months. In one partial responder, the metastatic masses have been decreasing in size for 12 months after completion of GC therapy. Our findings suggested that GC would be useful as a second line chemotherapy for urothelial cancer previously treated with M-VAC.