Combined Radiotherapy and Surgical Treatment

All reported experiences with the treatment of malignant bladder tumors indicate a sufficiently high incidence of therapeutic failure to justify, if not to demand, exploration of alternative methods offering a logical prospect of improvement. Since surgical treatment alone and radiation therapy alone have controlled some bladder cancers, it is empirically consistent to believe that the combination of these two modalities might prove more effective than either alone, and planned combinations of these two treatment methods provide one logical area for clinical trial. Clinical studies with combined irradiation and surgical intervention in the treatment of cancers of the head and neck, breast, lung, esophagus, and colon and rectum have suggested possible advantages of such combined therapy. Furthermore, occasional reports have suggested advantages of the use of interstitial irradiation or external irradiation combined with various forms of surgical excision for the treatment of selected patients with bladder cancer. Finally, laboratory studies of