The association between postvoid residual and response to standard therapy in male and female patients with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer.

Background: The urinary retention is recognized as a promoting factor for bladder cancer, but its role as prognostic factor of therapeutic response has not yet been widely considered. To correlate bladder outlet characteristics with short-term response to treatment in non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Materials and methods: We carried out a case-control study on 600 consecutive patients with a first diagnosis of non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer, recruited at the first endoscopic follow-up visit after standard treatment: 200 patients were not tumor-free (cases) and 400 were tumor-free (controls). Patients were compared based on baseline and bladder-outlet characteristics ("functional parameters": postvoid residual volume [PVR], International Prostatic Symptoms Score, perceived quality of bladder outlet). Results: The cases had higher statistically significant PVR values compared with controls. We reported a linear correlation of no-tumor-free status with PVR ( Conclusions: Urinary retention could represent a prognostic factor of treatment response, and its active treatment should be considered as an important therapeutic step into the clinical management of bladder cancer patients.