Point Counterpoint: BCG Maintenance Therapy Should Be Intense

Dr. Lamm is a Clinical Professor of Surgery at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and Director of BCG Oncology, his solo private practice in Phoenix. After completing his undergraduate studies and medical school at the University of California, Los Angeles, he did his urology residency at the University of California, San Diego, with Ben Gittes. The second year of this residency was devoted to research, and it was here that Dr. Lamm’s interest in bladder cancer began. At the suggestion of Dr. Dave McCullough, he added bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) to his animal bladder cancer studies. This led to the first published randomized clinical trial of BCG in 1980, which occurred while Dr. Lamm was at the University of Texas Health, San Antonio. This trial was followed by SWOG comparisons of BCG and doxorubicin, BCG and MMC, and induction versus BCG 3 week maintenance. While Dr. Lamm and others continue looking for new treatments, BCG remains the gold standard in bladder cancer treatment.