The impact of orthotopic neobladder vs ileal conduit urinary diversion after cystectomy on the survival outcomes in patients with bladder cancer: A propensity score matched analysis

BACKGROUND: Bladder cancer (BCa) is the most common urinary malignancy. The standard surgical treatment for patients with muscle‐invasive BCa is cystectomy plus urinary diversion. Ileal conduit (IC) or orthotopic neobladder (ON), which have different indications, are the most commonly performed urinary diversions. METHODS AND MATERIALS: We sampled 5480 BCa patients from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database from 2004 to 2015. Kaplan‐Meier method with the log‐rank test was used to assess cancer‐specific survival (CSS) and overall survival (OS). Univariate and multivariate Cox's proportional hazard model was conducted to evaluate the hazard ratio of cancer‐specific mortality and all‐cause mortality before and after propensity score matching (PSM). RESULTS: We identified 5480 patients who received radical cystectomy (RC) plus IC (n = 5071) or ON (n = 409) with a median follow‐up period of 33 months (interquartile range, 13‐78 months). Patients in the ON group tended to be male and younger, with a higher percentage of married individuals, early pathological T stage, lymphadenectomy, and non‐radiotherapy (all P < .05). After 1:1 PSM, 409 matched pairs were selected. Univariate and multivariate analysis showed that the ON group had better CSS and OS probabilities than the IC group in the overall cohort [hazard ratio (HR): 0.692, 95% confidence intervals (CI): 0.576‐0.831, P < .001; HR: 0.677, 95% CI: 0.579‐0.793, P < .001 respectively]. However, subgroup analysis revealed that only patients with pathological T2 stage benefited from ON diversion after PSM in the context of CSS (P = .016) and OS (P <.001). CONCLUSIONS: Young, married, and male patients with early pathological T stage, especially T2 stage, were more suitable to receive RC plus ON surgery, which could improve their probability of survival.