What are the treatments for urachal carcinoma, one of the types of bladder cancer?

Urachal carcinoma is a special type of bladder cancer. The treatments for urachal carcinoma include surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy. The final treatment effects vary depending on the patient's condition and the treatment chosen.

Surgery is the main treatment for urachal carcinoma, which can be divided into radical total cystectomy and partial cystectomy. At present, extended partial cystectomy, that is, partial cystectomy + umbilicus resection, is more recommended. This is because this method can minimize the patient's pain and improve the patient's quality of life after surgery. The surgical resection range includes the umbilicus, urachal and its surrounding tissues, tumors and the top of the bladder, and the transverse abdominal fascia and peritoneum must also be removed.

With the development of minimally invasive surgical techniques, laparoscopic resection is also an option for patients with urachal carcinoma. This technique has greatly reduced the pain of conventional surgery for patients. However, urachal carcinoma tumors are mainly local infiltration, and regional lymph node metastasis, lung and peritoneal metastasis are also common, which are difficult to completely detect and remove by surgery. 50% of patients have local recurrence after treatment.

For patients whose tumors cannot be removed, radiotherapy and chemotherapy are available. Radiotherapy can reduce the size of the tumor and relieve symptoms, with an average relief time of about 18 months. Chemotherapy is also one of the treatment options. The 5-year survival rate of patients with urachal carcinoma is about 6% to 15%. The main reason for the poor prognosis is that more than 80% of patients are already in clinical stage III when they are diagnosed.

Patients with urachal cancer can also undergo immunotherapy such as interleukin-2 and interferon to inhibit the malignant development of tumor cells through their own immune cells. They can also be combined with corresponding traditional Chinese medicine treatments to achieve good results.

Tips: Staging of urachal carcinoma

Stage I: The tumor infiltrates the urachal mucosa;

Stage II: The tumor is confined to the urachal tube;

Stage III: The tumor has spread locally;

Stage IV: The tumor has metastasized.