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th th ar the bladder cancer penetrates the basal mem-brane, then it has the potential to infiltrate and cystectomy for all patients with superficially invasive bladder cancer (pT1). e u r o p e a n u r o l o g y 5 0 ( 2 0 0 6) 1 1 2 9 – 1 1 3 8 avai lab le at www.sciencedi rect.com journa l homepage: www.europeanurology.comdisseminate. Indeed, the prognosis of patients with T1 grade 3 cancer that invades the muscularis mucosa is just as poor as a T2a/ T2b cancer that deeply invades the detrusor muscle [2]. Consequently, the conclusion at a recent bladder cancer consensus meeting was to abandon the expression ‘‘superficial’ ’ bladder cancer, for both Ta G1/G2 papillary tumours and T1G3 invasive bladder cancers [3]. These two heterogenous groups not only have a different prognosis but also require different treatment algorithms [3]. Even though the above finding has repeatedly been confirmed by others [4], one must be aware that the two groups with either immediate or deferred cystectomy are not comparable. The patients who underwent a deferred cystectomy were initially part of a larger group of patients with superficially invasive bladder cancer (pT1) who were managed conservatively with transurethral resec-tion (TUR) and intravesical immunotherapy or chemotherapy. Obviously, only patients in whom the bladder-sparing policy failed were referred fo