Discovery
November 5, 2018

The ADAPT-BLADDER trial will combine immune checkpoint-inhibitor therapy, BCG, and radiation therapy.

A complicated cancer needs a comprehensive approach. This is the thinking behind the ADAPT-BLADDER trial for non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC), for patients with recurrence after standard BCG therapy.

“This study brings together – for the first time – urologists, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists in planning and administering a combination of approaches,” says Noah Hahn, M.D., Associate Professor in Oncology and Urology and an internationally recognized authority on clinical trials and translational investigations in bladder cancer. He is the principal investigator of this study, which will combine “intravenously administered immune checkpoint- inhibitor therapy (durvalumab, an anti- PD-L1 antibody approved for metastatic bladder cancer), intravesically administered immunotherapy (BCG), and externally administered radiation therapy.”

The ADAPT-BLADDER trial is the first NMIBC study to look at immunotherapy (durvalumab) combined with radiation therapy, which started at The Brady and will expand to include 25 sites, Hahn adds.