How a drug shortage is changing bladder cancer treatment

For close to 50 years, a type of immunotherapy called Bacillus Calmette–Guerin (BCG) therapy has been used to treat early-stage bladder cancer.

It’s still the regimen of choice, but a new study has indicated that combining BCG with a chemotherapy drug might be better for some.

It could also go some way to addressing a global shortage of BCG, because it requires fewer doses of the immunotherapy.

Guest/s

• Professor Dickon Hayne, head of urology at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth and leader of urological research at the University of Western Australia

References

• Mitomycin + BCG as Adjuvant Intravesical Therapy for High-Risk Non–muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer: A Randomized Phase 3 Trial