ArticleCancer medicine2026
Characteristics of Patients With Advanced or Metastatic Urothelial Cancer Unable to Complete Six Cycles Chemotherapy.
Article in Cancer medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe optimal number of chemotherapy cycles prior to maintenance avelumab in frontline metastatic urothelial cancer (mUC) remains unknown. We hypothesize that baseline characteristics can identify which patients will complete six cycles of chemotherapy without radiographic disease progression, versus those who may benefit from stopping chemotherapy earlier and switching to maintenance avelumab.
methodsA retrospective audit was performed at Barts Cancer Centre for consecutive patients from January 2010 until August 2023. Patients who received frontline chemotherapy for mUC were included. Patients who completed six cycles of chemotherapy without radiographic disease progression (PD) were compared to those who discontinued treatment earlier or progressed during chemotherapy. Baseline characteristics and treatment factors were compared between patient groups using chi-squared tests (SPSS v29).
results194 patients receiving frontline platinum-based chemotherapy were identified. Only 85 of 193 patients (44%) completed six cycles without progression. Baseline characteristics were broadly comparable between patients who completed six cycles and those who did not, including ECOG performance status 0-1 (84% vs. 76%), presence of liver metastases (17% vs. 22%), baseline hemoglobin < 100 g/L (6% vs. 19%), and cisplatin use (59% vs. 54%), respectively. Early dose reduction (DR) prior to cycle 4 was the only factor significantly associated with failure to complete six cycles of chemotherapy without PD (14% vs. 43%, p < 0.001). Among patients requiring early dose reduction, only 19% subsequently completed six cycles without progression, while 43% progressed before reaching cycle 6, with a median PFS of 3 months (95% CI: 2.4-4.1).
conclusionBaseline characteristics do not reliably predict the ability to complete six cycles frontline chemotherapy in mUC. However, early dose reduction in the first four cycles highly predicted inability to complete six cycles of chemotherapy.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.