Second-line treatment of advanced transitional cell carcinoma of the urothelial tract

Abstract

Cisplatin-based combination chemotherapy such as methotrexate, vinblastine, adriamycin and cisplatin produces durable improvements in survival in only a minority of patients. Therefore, other therapeutic options and strategies are clearly needed. Strategies include increasing the dose of chemotherapy, modifying the sequencing of chemotherapy, and new therapeutic agents. This paper reviews recent work on high-dose chemotherapy, currently available chemotherapeutic agents and combinations, with an emphasis on gemcitabine and the taxanes. New strategies such as monoclonal antibody therapy and molecular targeted small molecule therapy are becoming a reality in the treatment of many diseases. The rationale for using epidermal growth factor receptor targeted therapies is also reviewed.