Over the last two to three decades the non-surgical curative management of bladder cancer has significantly progressed. Increasing evidence supports the use of bladder preservation as an alternative to radical cystectomy (RC) for localised muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). Radiosensitisation with chemotherapy or hypoxia modification improves the efficacy of radiotherapy. Systemic... Read more

Quality assurance remains a neglected component of many trials, particularly for technical interventions, such as surgery and radiotherapy, for which quality of treatment is an important component in defining outcomes. We aimed to evaluate evidence for the processes used in radiotherapy quality assurance of clinical trials. A systematic review was... Read more

BACKGROUND: BC2001 showed combining chemotherapy (5-FU + mitomycin-C) with radiotherapy improves loco-regional disease-free survival in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). We previously showed a 24-gene hypoxia-associated signature predicted benefit from hypoxia-modifying radiosensitisation in BCON and hypothesised that only patients with low hypoxia scores (HSs) would benefit from chemotherapy in... Read more

Hypoxia is a common feature of solid tumours affecting their biology and response to therapy. One of the main transcription factors activated by hypoxia is hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF), which regulates the expression of genes involved in various aspects of tumourigenesis including proliferative capacity, angiogenesis, immune evasion, metabolic reprogramming, extracellular matrix... Read more

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