Definitive surgical therapy for refractory radiation cystitis: Evaluating effectiveness, tolerability, and extent of surgical approach

•Treating radiation cystitis with definitive urinary diversion.•Management of intractable symptoms related to radiation cystitis.•Surgical feasibility of urinary diversion with radiation cystitis. The management of severe symptoms secondary to radiation changes to the bladder can be difficult. Many patients often endure costly procedures, hospitalizations, transfusions, and physician visits for intractable symptoms. Our aim was to evaluate the short-term efficacy and feasibility of urinary diversion in patients with severe, debilitating symptoms related to radiation cystitis by focusing on perioperative data examining surgical feasibility and assess for any improvement in the number of procedures, transfusions, hospitalizations, and office visits required. With IRB approval, we queried our institutional database for patients with a diagnosis code of radiation cystitis who underwent urinary diversion with or without bladder removal from 2011 to 2018. We reviewed institutional and regional record to assess pre, peri and postoperative outcomes, including rates of surgical procedures, hospitalizations, transfusions and clinic visits, in the year before and after treatment. Non-parametric statistics and linear regression were used. Of the 286 patients with radiation cystitis, 45 patients underwent definitive urinary diversion – 31 with concomitant cystectomy and 14 with diversion alone. Analysis of perioperative variables such as estimated blood loss, surgical time, post-operative hospital stay or complication rates were similar to our experience with cystectomy in non-radiated patients. With a mean follow up of 14.6 months, we found that the number of procedures, hospitalizations and transfusions objectively improved following radical surgery. Office visits, however, did not seem to be impacted by performing urinary diversion. There were no significant differences in post-operative benefits between patients that received a concomitant cystectomy and those that only underwent diversion. Patients suffering from severe refractory symptomatic radiation cystitis may be best treated with a radical surgical approach. Definitive urinary diversion with or without cystectomy can lower burden of disease by reducing the need for additional procedures, hospitalizations, and blood transfusions on short term follow-up.