(UroToday.com) For patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer who are eligible for curative-intent treatment, cisplatin-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by radical cystectomy (RC) is a standard of care with improved pathologic response and overall survival (OS) compared to RC alone. However, recurrence rates, progression, and cancer-related death remain relatively high. Pembrolizumab is active in high-risk non-muscle invasive and metastatic bladder cancer and is generally well tolerated. Thus, there was interest to add pembrolizumab to existing neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimes. As reported in a plenary abstract presentation in the Rapid Abstract Session: Urothelial Carcinoma and Rare Tumors session at the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology Genitourinary Cancers Symposium (ASCO GU), Dr. Rose and colleagues did just that, performing a phase II trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of gemcitabine and split-dose cisplatin (GC) + pembrolizumab as neoadjuvant therapy prior to RC (NCT02690558).