For those of us with CIS, bcg is often like a "miracle drug." Here is a recent summary taken from the Johns-Hopkins website:
A majority of UC are non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, however a high proportion of which will either recur (40-80%) or progress to muscle invasive disease (10-25%) despite complete resection.
Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) intravesical immunotherapy is standard of care and now recommended for high- and intermediate-risk NMIBC with complete response rates of 55-65% for Ta/T1 tumors and 70-75% for CIS.
Maintenance BCG therapy is recommended after induction therapy using the SWOG schedule of a 6 week induction course followed by 3 weekly instillations at 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months.
I was diagnosed with CIS almost 9 years ago, went through BCG and the BCG maintenance protocols and have been cancer-free ever since.
Sara Anne