Congratulations on PCORI 2018 CISTO: Comparison of Intravesical Therapy and Surgery as Treatment Options for Bladder Cancer Award

August 27, 2018

Congratulations to the University of Washington’s Dr. John Gore and Dr. Angela Smith from the University of North Carolina, along with a team of researchers who have been awarded funding for a pragmatic (conducted in a real-world clinical practice setting) clinical study designed to evaluate patient-centered outcomes. Support for this research comes from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).

Known as CISTO (Comparison of Intravesical Therapy and Surgery as Treatment Options for Bladder Cancer), this study will compare bladder removal with medical therapy. Both patients and their caregivers will share their experiences and outcomes following treatment for up to three years. The goal of this study is to provide information to future patients, their caregivers, and their medical providers so that patients can choose the treatment that best meets their needs based on the outcomes and preferences of patients like them.

“CISTO is a comparative effectiveness research study, which means that we are trying to weigh the benefits of two or more treatments and figure out which patients benefit from which treatment at which time in their care. For CISTO, we are going to compare the removal of the bladder with radical cystectomy with bladder-sparing alternatives in the management of non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer that has returned despite BCG treatments. We hope to be able to determine which patients are likely to benefit more from radical cystectomy, and which patients are candidates to avoid this big surgery and pursue additional treatments into the bladder.

CISTO is the culmination of a partnership between BCAN, Dr. Angela Smith, and myself, and perfectly illustrates the importance of engaging and involving patients throughout the research process. Through a PCORI Engagement Award, we created the BCAN Patient Survey Network, which allows the patient voice to identify which research questions are most important. A second PCORI Engagement Award supported the PEER program, which helps patients acquire training that emboldens them to participate as research team members. This early work was fed back to PCORI and they made bladder cancer a funding priority. With CISTO, we are taking a research question that patients told us was important, involving patients as research team members who received additional training from BCAN, and answering this research question through a network of BCAN Think Tank attendees.

 I am excited about what we will find through CISTO. But more importantly, I am proud of how we got here and thankful to BCAN for the support and partnership.”

Dr. John Gore

Patients, caregivers, and BCAN will participate in regular meetings, blog posts, tweet chats, webinars, preparing reports and videos. Partners in this study will incorporate the results in educational materials and practice guidelines to help ensure that providers receive and use the findings from this study when talking with their patients. For more information, click here.