The Importance of a Multidisciplinary Approach to Bladder Cancer

Petros Grivas, MD, PhD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center explains the importance of a multidisciplinary tumor board when reviewing the treatment options for patients with bladder cancer. With input from other specialties, the care provided to patients is more individualized and takes into account the totality of the patient.

Transcript:

Hello, I'm Dr. Petros Grivas. I'm a medical oncologist at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Associate Professor at University of Washington, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. I'm very excited about all the changes and updates in the field of bladder cancer and urothelial cancer in general, and all the new treatment options for our patients, as well as the plethora of clinical trials now that we have to offer to our patients.

So overall, I would say that the way we approach bladder cancer, especially in early stages at the University of Washington, includes a multidisciplinary, multi-specialty blood and cancer tumor board clinic, that happens every Tuesday morning. And in that forum, we have the opportunity to review the patient's records in detail, the CAT scans, MRIs, if applicable, pathology review of TURBTs or other biopsies, as well as have the input from pathology and radiology, so you can have a real-time tumor board. And we have urological oncology, medical oncology, and radiation oncology, who, at the same time, review the case. And we have about 4 patients in half a day. And that gives us the opportunity to provide one-stop shop for the patients, so we can have a multi-specialty approach and try to give recommendations that are individualized, personalized, as much as possible to particular features from the cancer and the patient in total, because we try to treat the patient in total, take into account other medical comorbidities, medical issues, performance status, and other considerations, social support, nutritional support, and other features that may be relevant to decision making.

I would say it's a very exciting time about the cancer. In a future interview, we can discuss more about metastatic disease and all the major and many updates we have in treating patients with metastatic urothelial cancer, either from upper-tract or lower-tract, and there are many updates there. But overall, I think the multi-specialty approach in a localized disease setting in many academic centers can help the patient having a quick access to treatment and the best possible treatment recommendation based on evidence-based approaches, and clinical trials should be considered as well. Thank you so much for attending this, and hopefully we can have more interactions in the future. Stay safe and well.