Long term disease free survival with multimodal therapy in small cell bladder cancer

BACKGROUND: Small cell bladder cancer (SCBC) is an aggressive subtype accounting for less than 1 % of all bladder malignancies associated with rapid progression, early metastases formation and high mortality rates. CASE PRESENTATION: We present an unusual long term disease free survival of a 60 year-old man who was diagnosed with SCBC two and a half years ago. He underwent four cycles of cisplatin/etoposide chemotherapy as well as a prophylactic whole-brain radiotherapy followed by a radical cystoprostatectomy and ileal neobladder with extended pelvic lymphadenectomy. Since 33 months the patient is now recurrence-free. CONCLUSION: In this case report, we were able to show that early multimodal therapy results in long term disease free survival, thus we highly recommend neoadjuvant chemotherapy as a part of multimodal management of a primary metastases-free, localized and surgically resectable SCBC.