ABSTRACT

Open radical cystectomy is the standard curative treatment for muscle invasive bladder cancer. Although it is excellent in locoregional tumor control, this “standard” method of treatment provides 5-year survival in only half of the patients. Besides, recent growing interest in quality of life issues has increased the trend toward bladder preservation treatment. Although bladder protective treatment is still in its early stages, its favorable preliminary results have questioned whether or not radical cystectomy was really the standard or the gold standard method of treatment. For muscle invasive bladder cancer, radical cystectomy and its current alternatives were discussed along with their oncological outcomes in this review.