Newswise — UC San Diego Health is the first health system in San Diego County to offer a new bladder-saving gene therapy to treat localized bladder cancer. The novel treatment is the first and only FDA-approved gene therapy delivered directly into the bladder for non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). Called nadofaragene firadenovec (Adstiladrin), the gene therapy addresses an unmet need for patients who are no longer responding to the longstanding first line of defense — bacillus calmette-guerin (BCG), a bacteria-based immunotherapy for cancer management.
While BCG is a common first therapy, it can eventually stop working, ultimately leading to complete bladder removal. The American Cancer Society estimates that 83,000 new cases of bladder cancer will be diagnosed this year, and approximately 17,000 will die of the disease. NMIBC is the most common type of bladder cancer, accounting for nearly 75% of cases.
It is a type of localized bladder cancer that has not metastasized or invaded into the muscle wall of the bladder. "The primary treatment for NMIBC in the past typically involved surgical resection, followed by therapies into the bladder, like immunotherapy or chemotherapy. Unfortunately, if these interventions proved ineffective, the standard course of action involved bladder removal, which poses a substantial morbidity risk,” said Amirali Salmasi, MD, associate professor of urology at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, urologist at UC San .
