A new drug pair beats chemotherapy for people with bladder cancer
For muscle-invasive bladder cancer, two immune-related drugs given before and after surgery worked better than standard chemotherapy. After 2 years, 86.9% of people on the new drugs were alive, versus 81.3% on chemotherapy.
Why it matters
Bladder cancer that has grown into the muscle can be deadly, and chemotherapy has been the usual treatment for many years. This large trial suggests a different pair of drugs helps more people live longer and clears the tumour more often before surgery. That could change how doctors treat this cancer. But the new drugs also caused more serious side effects, so the choice is not simple.
Who's behind it: M. D. Galsky and colleagues, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and international collaborators. Funded by Merck Sharp and Dohme, a maker of one of the drugs tested.
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