Clinical Trial Of Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy (NAC)In Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma (UTUC)

In recent years, the combination of gemcitabine and cisplatin given every 21 days (gemcitabine on days 1 and 8 only) has been used in trials and routine clinical practice. Additionally, surgery, primarily radical nephroureterectomy (RNU) with bladder cuff removal, is the current standard treatment for invasive upper tract urothelial carcinoma. Upper tract urothelial cancer (UTUC) or urothelial cancer arising in the pelvicalyceal or ureteral locations is a lethal cancer accounting for 5% of all urothelial cancers. In urothelial cancer of the bladder, randomized clinical trials and meta-analyses have shown a survival advantage with neoadjuvant cisplatin-based chemotherapy. It is conceivable that a similar approach may benefit patients with UTUC. Both Gemcitabine and Cisplatin are approved by the FDA. Cisplatin is approved for use in urothelial cancer. Gemcitabine is FDA approved to be used alone or with other drugs to treat breast, non-small lung, ovarian, and pancreatic cancers. Gemcitabine is not approved by the FDA for urothelial cancer, but it is typically used together with Cisplatin in trials and routine clinical practice for treating urothelial cancer. Exploratory integrative tumor sequencing: The biology of UTUC is poorly understood due to the relative rarity of the disease and the lack of comprehensive genomic and translational studies. This trial offers a rare opportunity to apply high-throughput sequencing techniques in UTUC to detect several classes of cancer mutations including structural rearrangements, copy number alterations, point mutations, and gene expression alterations. This research could help to develop future studies in UTUC to help researchers understand more about UTUC and how to treat it. Additionally, we may identify a potentially important result from DNA samples from subjects that could possibly help manage their cancer better by pursing a different cancer therapy rather than the study therapy.