Clinically Relevant Reduction in Risk of Recurrence of Superficial Bladder Cancer Using 5-Aminolevulinic Acid-Induced Fluorescence Diagnosis: 8-Year Results of Prospective Randomized Study

Objectives Several studies have shown that 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA)-induced fluorescence cystoscopy improves the detection of superficial bladder cancer. The results have suggested a reduced rate of recurrent tumors with the use of 5-ALA fluorescence before bladder tumor resection. We performed a prospective, randomized trial to investigate whether the long-term tumor recurrence and residual tumor rates can be decreased using 5-ALA fluorescence diagnosis (FD). Methods A total of 301 patients with suspected superficial bladder carcinoma were randomized to transurethral resection (TUR) using conventional white light (WL) or FD. TUR was repeated to evaluate the residual tumor rate. In addition, patients were followed up for a median of 83 (WL) and 86 (FD) months to evaluate recurrence-free survival (RFS). Results Of the 301 patients, 191 were available for the efficacy analysis. The residual tumor rate was 25.2% in the WL arm versus 4.5% in the FD arm ( P