Dr. Sklar on Challenges With Clinical Trials in Bladder Cancer

Geoffrey Sklar, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Chesapeake Urology Associates, discusses some of the challenges that come with conducting clinical trials in the treatment of patients with bladder cancer.

Most of the current trials in this space are in their infancy, explains Sklar. The problem is that it is very difficult to do uniform trials in bladder cancer, meaning getting patients together who are all at the same stage in their disease. Also, patients with advanced disease are usually older, in their 70s and 80s, and they may have more comorbidities than other individuals.

Sklar also touches on potential opportunities for infusion therapies to treat patients with kidney or bladder cancer. He notes that the side effect profiles of many immunotherapy agents are quite different from the intravenous chemotherapeutic agents. Thus, while infusion therapies, such as sipuleucel-T (Provenge), have proven to be beneficial in patients with prostate cancer, there are still unanswered questions about these treatments in bladder and kidney cancer.