Effects of Anemia on Overall Survival in Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of preoperative anemia on overall survival in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer.
Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the medical data of patients with a diagnosis of muscle-invasive bladder cancer who underwent consecutive cystectomy. The patients were divided into two groups as those with and without anemia before the operation. These two groups were compared in terms of age, gender, smoking status, American Society of Anesthesiologists score, the history of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, pathological tumor (pT) stage, pathological node stage, number of lymph nodes removed, positive surgical margin, concomitant carcinoma in situ (CIS) presence, lymphovascular invasion, perineural invasion, history of adjuvant chemotherapy, overall survival, recurrence status, urinary diversion type, tumor multiplicity and grade.
Results: A statistically significant difference was found between the groups in terms of overall survival. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of other variables. Overall survival in group 1 was 61.8 months, and overall survival in group 2 was 32.6 months. Overall survival in all patients was 47.9 months. Five-year overall survival was 54% in group 1 and 20% in group 2.
Conclusion: We detected that the presence of preoperative anemia was associated with poor overall survival rates in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer. We consider that preoperative anemia and pT stage are variables that can be used to predict overall survival