BOSTON -- Although a new cancer treatment has been done for almost 20 years at Massachusetts General Hospital, few patients know about it and many specialists do not embrace it.

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Rhonda Mann Reports On Treatment

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NewsCenter 5's Rhonda Mann reported Thursday that it's called bladder sparing. Some call it a risky treatment for a cancer that can progress quickly. But if it works, it can lead to a better quality of life.

Alan Costa covers a lot of ground in the course of a day. He runs a golf club on Nantucket and at 55, knows it's important to stay fit. So when he first noticed blood in his urine, he saw a doctor right away.

"There's never been cancer in my family. I'm not a smoker. I was absolutely stunned. I couldn't believe it. And I guess my first thought was, 'this is how I'm going to die,'" Costa said.

Costa had bladder cancer -- and like 20 percent of those diagnosed with the disease, it was the more aggressive, muscle-invasive form. The typical treatment -- removal of the bladder and prostate -- often leaves patients with an outer bag to collect urine and side effects, like impotence.

"This is a very aggressive tumor and it's a very deadly tumor as well. So that most patients that have that type of bladder cancer if they are going to live and be cured need very aggressive treatment," Massachusetts General Hospital Dr. Donald Kaufman said.

But over the last 20 years, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital have developed and refined a little known approach to bladder cancer. It is a bladder sparing protocol -- limited surgery to remove most of the tumor, radiation and chemotherapy.

"It offers the patient the option of with a very high probability, not 100 percent, of having their bladder cured of its cancer without having to have the bladder removed," Massachusetts General Hospital Dr. William Shipley said.

They performed the treatment on 40 patients last year, with cure rates that are similar to the traditional surgery.

"The result has been quite extraordinary. (About) 95 percent of patients who undergo this treatment end up with normally functioning bladders," Shipley said.

But many surgeons are not comfortable with the approach and some caution there are risks delaying surgery.

"The mortality rates for those with muscle invasive bladder cancer can be quite high, probably approaching 50 percent, and there has been shown that people who delay radical surgery to undergo chemotherapy and radiation protocols, some of those people have lost their window for cure," Mt. Auburn Hospital Dr. Paul LaFontaine said.

But doctors follow patients closely, changing their course of treatment if it becomes necessary.

"In the instance of a relapse or a reoccurrence, the bladder can be removed and this focus of new tumor can be removed before it has a chance to spread," Shipley said.

Costa saw a number of doctors but only learned of this option through a friend. He has no side effects and wants others to know it may be worth exploring.

"I got to the point where I felt that I was doing something. Once you feel you are empowered, you start to believe, 'You know, I'm doing something. I can beat cancer,'" Costa said.