TY  - JOUR
TI  - Transurethral laser ablation using 980-nm diode laser for recurrent non-muscle invasive bladder cancer
AU  - Fukuhara, Hideo
AU  - Shimasaki, Syo
AU  - Yamashita, Erika
AU  - Kurano, Yoshitaka
AU  - Atagi, Kaya
AU  - Shigehisa, Ryu
AU  - Takemori, Daigo
AU  - Yamamoto, Shinkuro
AU  - Osakabe, Hiroto
AU  - Nao, Tomoya
AU  - Shimamoto, Tsutomu
AU  - Fukata, Satoshi
AU  - Ashida, Shingo
AU  - Inoue, Keiji
PY  - 2026
JO  - Exploration of Targeted Anti-tumor Therapy
VL  - 7
SP  - 1002386
DO  - 10.37349/etat.2026.1002386
UR  - https://www.explorationpub.com/Journals/etat/Article/1002386
AB  - Aim: Transurethral laser ablation (TULA) for recurrent bladder cancer is a less invasive treatment method for patients. We report here our initial clinical experience with TULA for recurrent bladder cancer. Methods: This retrospective study analyzed 48 patients. Twenty-four cases were treated with TULA and another 24 cases were treated with transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT) from Feb 2024 to Mar 2025 at Kochi Medical School Hospital. Intraoperative and postoperative outcomes and recurrence-free survival (RFS) were analyzed between TULA and TURBT. Results: This study showed that TULA using a 980-nm diode laser was significantly shorter than TURBT in terms of perioperative results: operative time, hospital stay, catheterization, bladder irrigation, and postoperative hospital stay. Regarding the occurrence of complications, TULA was observed to be less prevalent than TURBT in all cases. Kaplan-Meier curves showed that TULA was significantly associated with longer RFS compared to TURBT (hazard ratio 4.739; 95% confidence interval, 1.272–17.65; p = 0.02039). Conclusions: Our preliminary results showed that TULA for recurrent bladder cancer is feasible and safe.
ER  -