Eligible patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) typically receive cisplatin-based chemotherapy before radical cystectomy, although approximately 50% will have disease relapse within 3 years. Now, newly published data from the phase III NIAGARA trial simultaneously presented at the ESMO Congress 2024 demonstrate that adding perioperative durvalumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy improves outcomes in this setting.

A total of 1,063 patients were randomly allocated (1:1) to receive neoadjuvant gemcitabine–cisplatin followed by radical cystectomy with or without neoadjuvant and adjuvant durvalumab (durvalumab and control group, respectively). Pathological complete response (pCR) and event-free survival (EFS) were the co-primary end points.