Table 1.

Key points

1. Data sharing, privacy issues and social media influence how research is disseminated and researchers should use caution in using and interpreting findings from ‘large data’.

2. Analysis of patient experience and research regarding enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) program in bladder cancer is promising with further refinements balancing risks versus benefits implementing such protocols.

3. The use of xenografts and other bench to bedside have expanded how bladder cancer modeling can be used to advance the field and lead to potential for improvements in patient care.

4. The role of alterations within the DNA repair gene ERCC2 as a predictor of response to cisplatin sensitivity can be used to prospectively select those bladder cancer patients who are most likely to respond to cisplatin-based chemotherapy.

5. The first trial exploring immune checkpoint blockade in bladder cancer involving the administration of two doses of the CTLA-4 inhibitor, ipilimumab, prior to cystectomy in patients with invasive bladder cancer which shows promise for future trials including recent phase I studies of pembrolizumab and atezolizumab.

6. The increasing importance of radiation therapy as an immunomodulatory treatment modality provides a basis for combinatorial approaches involving radiation and immune checkpoint blockade which may be an “abscopal” effect