Efficacy of instillations with chemotherapy or immunotherapy following endoscopic resection for upper tract urothelial carcinoma

Abstract

Although nephroureterectomy with a bladder cuff remains the gold-standard approach to upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC), the relative ease by which local control can be achieved for non-muscle-invasive bladder urothelial carcinoma keeps prompting us to look into less radical and invasive methods of treating UTUC. The success of transurethral bladder tumor resection followed by intravesical therapy in controlling noninvasive bladder cancer has been firmly established. However, owing to the scarcity of patients with UTUC, there are only a few reports on the efficacy of percutaneous or endoscopic resection followed by instillation with chemotherapy or immunotherapy for UTUC, most of which have extrapolated data from bladder cancer in deciding on treatment regimens. The following manuscript portrays a comprehensive review of the literature on upper tract instillations in patients with UTUC.