cystectomy with no chemo??

side bar...
if i have bladder out , they will also take prostate..is this common ??

I had my chemo b4 the RC and glad that I did and I really had no choice T3G3 and my surgeon said he had better success doing the chemo b4 the surgery. I posted this b4 Dr's are still debating over the neoadjuvant chemo and the adjuvant chemo and some folks here were told after their RC they didn't need the chemo so I guess it is the Dr's call and what you as the patient are comfortable with. Best of Luck, Joe

mleigh...question...did they do their own tests at MD Anderson or go purely on the tests done by the local uro? I find it hard to believe that the expertise level of radiation specialists and pathologists at MD Anderson would not know if an area was suspicious or not prior to the cystectomy? Thats just a bit unnerving isn't it?
Chemo is generally given prior to cystectomy with T2and higher and high grade tumors which indicate they are already invasive..along with CT scans or PET scans if insurance will pay for it, bone scans, and blood work. Some surgeons still prefer to wait until after cystectomy based on other scans being clean to give chemo..and if found in the lymph nodes definately chemo is recommended.
I personally had T2(into the first layer of muscle) and low grade blc but was it was not recommended that i do chemo prior to cystectomy...this opinion given by 3 different surgeons all tops in the field. I had 36 lymph nodes removed..all clean...so no recommended chemo after. This was 5 l/2 yrs ago. I now feel like maybe i'm a time bomb! Pat

In my husbands case he had a stage 3 T-2 muscle invasive tumor. His r/c was this past Sept, he had no chemo, no radiation as there were no signs of cancer involement elsewhere. We were glad no treatment was needed and believed in what our surgeon said, we are 8 months out of surgery now and have had routine tests, no cancer at this point, I believe the decision not to have chemo comes from what is on the path report, and from the previous tests before surgery...we were told if the cancer is going to reappear it generally does so between 6 to 12 months after surgery.....Ginger

My husband was diagnosed with invasive bladder cancer back in 03. Few months latter he had his bladder removed and had a neobladder made in New York. He had no chemo because the cancer was not found on lymph nodes that where removed nor was no trace of cancer anywheres else. And he remained cancer free for 4 years after that.

I can only speak for myself, but I was also diagnosed two years ago at age 49 and did not have chemo before surgery at USC/Norris. Because my cancer was invasive and grade 4, I had surgery pretty quickly after the diagnosis.

After surgery I did end up having chemo because of lymph node involvement, but my surgeon said if I was clean he probably wouldn't have recommended chemo, or perhaps just one round to be on the safe side.