Efficacy, tolerance and predictors of response to the treatment with hyperbaric oxygen therapy for patients with hemorrhagic radiation cystitis.

OBJECTIVES

The aim was to study the efficacy and tolerance in patients with haemorrhagic radiation-induced cystitis (HRC) treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HOT) and analyze which factors were related to the response to the treatment.

MATERIAL AND

METHODS

We performed a retrospective cohort study of patients treated with HOT for HRC symptoms in a provincial referral centre from 2010 to 2020. We evaluated clinical response to treatment, number of hospitalizations due to HRC and subjective response using the PGI-I questionnaire.

RESULTS

We treated 52 patients, with a median of 30 sessions, during 6 months and 40 months (6-68 months) of follow-up. 69.2%of patients responded completely and 21,2% partially. The 53.2% of patients improved before the first 10 sessions. Reduction of hospitalizations/per year due to haematuria from 2.8 to 1.1 (p=0,001). The 73,5% of patients stated that they were "very much better" or "much better" after treatment. During the follow-up, 15.4% of patients had recurrence of HRC. 9.6% of the patients required salvage cystectomy. The patients with a highest RTOG-EORTC scale had more risk to still with symptoms (OR 3.01 (IC95 1.48 - 6.16). All patients were able to complete the proposed treatment plan with good tolerance to HOT.

CONCLUSIONS

These results show the clinical benefit of HOT in the treatment of HRC, with a reduction of the number of hospitalizations and a subjective improvement.