Dr. Lyon on what inspired a look into in-home intravesical therapy for NMIBC

Video

"In many cases, we're now bringing the capabilities of the hospital into a patient's home," says Timothy D. Lyon, MD, FACS.

In this video, Timothy D. Lyon, MD, FACS, explains what led to the research discussed in the Journal of Urology letter, “In-home intravesical therapy: the future of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer care delivery?” Lyon is a practicing urologic oncologist at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.

Video Transcript:

The idea for this paper really came from our patients. A couple of patients were asking about whether there would be an easier way for them to receive the treatments for their non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer. As you may know, bladder cancer generally happens to an older population. I think the median age of diagnosis is 73. Oftentimes, they have several other medical problems going on in addition to their bladder cancer, which might affect their mobility or the ease with which they can come back and forth from the healthcare system.

On top of that, intravesical therapy for bladder cancer, or non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer, is really time intensive. It's really a high-touch treatment process. The patients need to come in once a week for 6 weeks in a row. So, they drive in from home, park in the parking lot, come up to the office, actually get the treatments or therapies, and then have to go home. That amount of travel with that frequency can really be quite a burden to some of our older patients that are dealing with other medical conditions.

On top of that, in the past few years with the COVID pandemic, we've rapidly been moving a lot of healthcare to the patient's home. We really increased virtual visits. We've increased the number of procedures that we're doing now on an outpatient basis. In many cases, we're now bringing the capabilities of the hospital into a patient's home. Things that used to need to be done in a brick-and-mortar hospital, such as getting IV antibiotics or having round the clock nursing care, can now be done in the comfort of a patient's own home.

The collision of those 2 processes led us to think about this. As patients were asking, "is there an easier way, doc, than me having to come in quite a distance every week to get treatment?", we thought, could we use some of the same processes and techniques that we're using to bring other aspects of healthcare to the patient's home, to allow them to get intravesical therapy in their own home?

This transcript was edited for clarity.

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