A Phase 2 interventional study of Sasanlimab and Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy in Urothelial Carcinoma Bladder, sponsored by The Methodist Hospital Research Institute. Active, not recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-10-24.
Sponsored by The Methodist Hospital Research Institute · Phase 2, Interventional, and Treatment
This is a prospective, single-institution, single-arm, phase II clinical trial that tests a novel strategy of neoadjuvant Sasanlimab, an immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI), in combination with stereotactic body radiation therapy as an in-situ vaccination in patients, who are ineligible to receive cisplatin-based chemotherapy and undergoing radical cystectomy for muscle-invasive bladder cancer.
Patients with cT2-T4a, N0, M0 urothelial bladder carcinoma (UBC) after transurethral resection of the bladder will receive 2 doses of sasanlimab (PF-06801591) at the dose of 300mg subcutaneously, followed by 3 doses of radiation (8Gy x 3) prior to surgery (radical cystectomy). Cystectomy will be planned to be done within 6 weeks of the last dose of sasanlimab.
Pathologic complete response (pT0) is the primary endpoint, in addition to a safety lead-in endpoint consisting of a composite outcome of feasibility and safety.
Exploratory biomarker analysis on tissue/blood samples will include genomic and immune-system profiling in tumor and blood before and after sasanlimab/radiation therapy, and after radical cystectomy.
1,798 studies on the registry are indexed under Urinary Bladder Neoplasms; 445 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 33 is below the median of 60 across 1,296 interventional studies indexed under Urinary Bladder Neoplasms.
Browse Urinary Bladder Neoplasms studies →The Methodist Hospital Research Institute is the lead sponsor of 160 studies on the registry; 59 are open to participants now.
Of its 28 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 18 (64%) have results posted.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.
Decline/refuse OR Ineligible to receive cisplatin-based Chemotherapy due to at least one of the following criteria:
a. less than 60 mL/min b. Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of ≥ 2 c. Grade ≥ 2 hearing loss d. Grade ≥ 2 neuropathy
Adequate Bone Marrow Function (without hematopoietic growth factor support within 14 days prior to study screening), defined as:
a. (ANC) ≥1,500/mm3 or ≥1.5 x 109/L b. ≥100,000/mm3 or 100 x 109/L c. ≥9 g/dL (≥5.6 mmol/L)
Adequate liver function, including:
a. Aspartate and (AST and ALT) ≤ 2.5 × the upper normal limit range () b. Total serum ≤ 1.5 x ULN
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Males - for the duration of study and for at least 6 months after the last dose of study drug (Sasanlimab):
Females:
a) Eligible to participate if not pregnant or breast feeding AND Is not a woman of childbearing potential (WOCBP) OR Is a WOCBP and is using a contraceptive method that is highly effective (failure rate of \< 1% per year), with low user dependency during the during the study treatment and for at least 6 months after the last dose of study drug (Sasanlimab) b) A WOCBP must have a negative, highly sensitive (at least 25 IU/mL) pregnancy test by urine or serum testing within 24 hours before the first dose of study drug (Sasanlimab). In cases where the urine test cannot be confirmed to be negative, a serum pregnancy test will be used.
Exclusion Criteria:
Active or history of disease which may deteriorate when receiving immune checkpoint blockade.
Current unstable liver or biliary disease, defined by the presence of ascites, encephalopathy, coagulopathy, hypoalbuminemia, esophageal or gastric varices, persistent jaundice, or cirrhosis.
Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
A scale of how much an illness limits everyday activity. For people being assessed to join a study, scores run from 0 (fully active) to 4; lower is more active.
Studies most often ask for 0–1 or 0–2. Your doctor gives the score; the WHO scale uses the same steps. The full scale also has 5, which records death.
Neoadjuvant treatment is given before the main treatment (usually surgery), often to shrink a tumour. Adjuvant treatment is given after it, to lower the chance of the cancer coming back.
How quickly the kidneys clear creatinine, a waste product, from the blood. A study may estimate it from a blood test with age, weight and sex (often by the Cockcroft–Gault formula), or measure it using blood and urine collected over a set time. Given in mL/min; higher is better.
The number of neutrophils, white blood cells that help fight infection, in a given amount of blood. Too few raises the risk of infection.
It is a count, not a percentage of the white cells. Limits are written in units that mean the same: ≥ 1.5 × 10⁹/L is ≥ 1,500 per mm³ (µL). Each lab has its own reference range.
Blood cells that help blood clot. Too few raises the risk of bleeding and bruising. A usual adult range is about 150–400 × 10⁹/L (150,000–400,000 per µL); each lab has its own reference range.
The protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. A low level is anaemia, which can cause tiredness and breathlessness. Measured in g/dL or g/L (9 g/dL is 90 g/L).
Two enzymes measured in a routine blood test of the liver. Higher levels can mean the liver is under strain or damaged. SGPT and SGOT are older names for ALT and AST.
Criteria usually give a limit as a multiple of the upper limit of normal (ULN), often higher when cancer has spread to the liver.
The top of the normal range for a blood test, as set by the laboratory that runs it. Each lab prints its own range next to your result.
“≤ 2.5 × ULN” means the result can be up to two and a half times that top value.
A yellow substance made when red blood cells are broken down, which the liver clears. A high level can mean a problem with the liver or the bile ducts.
Criteria often allow more for people with Gilbert’s syndrome, a harmless inherited condition that raises bilirubin.
Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.
Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.
Able to become pregnant: from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery (removal of the womb, or of both ovaries or both fallopian tubes).
Criteria for people of childbearing potential usually ask for a negative pregnancy test and for contraception during the study and for a time after it.
A biopsy takes a small piece of tissue to examine. “Archival tissue” is a sample already taken, for example at diagnosis, and kept by the hospital.
Whether a stored sample will do depends on when it was taken, how much there is and what the study needs. Ask whether the study accepts your stored sample or needs a new biopsy.
Cancer that has spread from where it began to other parts of the body. “Metastatic” cancer is cancer that has spread this way.
A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.
It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.
Malignancy means cancer. Criteria about another or earlier malignancy ask whether you have had a different cancer, usually within a set number of years.
Some are commonly allowed, such as treated skin cancers other than melanoma and early cancers removed completely — check the exceptions this study lists.
A condition in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease.
Immunotherapy studies often leave out active autoimmune disease, and some name exceptions, such as thyroid disease on replacement hormone. Check the exceptions this study lists.
A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.
Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.
Judged by the study doctor to matter for your health or for the study. It is a doctor’s decision, so ask the study team if you are unsure whether something counts.
Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.
Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.
Hepatitis B is a virus that infects the liver. These are separate tests: HBsAg positive usually means a current infection (a recent vaccination can briefly cause it too); total anti-HBc (HBcAb) positive means an infection now or in the past; HBV DNA measures how much virus is in the blood.
Some studies accept a past infection if HBV DNA is undetectable, sometimes with antiviral medicine during the study. Check what this study allows.
Hepatitis C is a virus that infects the liver. An HCV antibody test can stay positive after an infection has cleared (and is occasionally positive without one); an HCV RNA test shows whether the virus is there now.
After treatment, hepatitis C counts as cured when HCV RNA is still undetectable 12 weeks or more after the treatment ended. Studies often accept people cured this way.
The human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens the immune system.
Many studies now accept people whose HIV is controlled on treatment, judged by the viral load and the CD4 count. Check the limits this study sets.
PD-1, PD-L1 and CTLA-4 are proteins that act as brakes on the immune system. Checkpoint inhibitors, such as pembrolizumab or nivolumab, block them so the immune system can attack a cancer.
PD-L1 can also be measured in a tumour sample. Some scores count stained tumour cells only (TPS); others also count certain immune cells (CPS). The study names the score and the minimum it uses.
The New York Heart Association’s four classes of how much heart failure limits physical activity.
Studies set their own limit — many outside heart failure leave out class III–IV, while heart failure studies may ask for a particular class. Check the class this study names.
On an ECG, the QT interval is the time the heart’s lower chambers take to activate electrically and recover in each beat. QTc is that time adjusted for heart rate (QTcF by Fridericia’s formula, QTcB by Bazett’s). Some medicines lengthen it, and a long QTc can raise the risk of a dangerous heart rhythm.
The study may name a correction formula and a limit in milliseconds, often around 450–480.
Informed consent
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
ECOG performance status
A scale of how much an illness limits everyday activity. For people being assessed to join a study, scores run from 0 (fully active) to 4; lower is more active.
Studies most often ask for 0–1 or 0–2. Your doctor gives the score; the WHO scale uses the same steps. The full scale also has 5, which records death.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Adjuvant and neoadjuvant
Neoadjuvant treatment is given before the main treatment (usually surgery), often to shrink a tumour. Adjuvant treatment is given after it, to lower the chance of the cancer coming back.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Creatinine clearance (CrCl)
How quickly the kidneys clear creatinine, a waste product, from the blood. A study may estimate it from a blood test with age, weight and sex (often by the Cockcroft–Gault formula), or measure it using blood and urine collected over a set time. Given in mL/min; higher is better.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Absolute neutrophil count (ANC)
The number of neutrophils, white blood cells that help fight infection, in a given amount of blood. Too few raises the risk of infection.
It is a count, not a percentage of the white cells. Limits are written in units that mean the same: ≥ 1.5 × 10⁹/L is ≥ 1,500 per mm³ (µL). Each lab has its own reference range.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Platelets
Blood cells that help blood clot. Too few raises the risk of bleeding and bruising. A usual adult range is about 150–400 × 10⁹/L (150,000–400,000 per µL); each lab has its own reference range.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Hemoglobin (Hb)
The protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. A low level is anaemia, which can cause tiredness and breathlessness. Measured in g/dL or g/L (9 g/dL is 90 g/L).
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
ALT and AST (liver enzymes)
Two enzymes measured in a routine blood test of the liver. Higher levels can mean the liver is under strain or damaged. SGPT and SGOT are older names for ALT and AST.
Criteria usually give a limit as a multiple of the upper limit of normal (ULN), often higher when cancer has spread to the liver.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
ULN (upper limit of normal)
The top of the normal range for a blood test, as set by the laboratory that runs it. Each lab prints its own range next to your result.
“≤ 2.5 × ULN” means the result can be up to two and a half times that top value.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Bilirubin
A yellow substance made when red blood cells are broken down, which the liver clears. A high level can mean a problem with the liver or the bile ducts.
Criteria often allow more for people with Gilbert’s syndrome, a harmless inherited condition that raises bilirubin.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Contraception
Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.
Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Childbearing potential
Able to become pregnant: from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery (removal of the womb, or of both ovaries or both fallopian tubes).
Criteria for people of childbearing potential usually ask for a negative pregnancy test and for contraception during the study and for a time after it.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Biopsy and archival tissue
A biopsy takes a small piece of tissue to examine. “Archival tissue” is a sample already taken, for example at diagnosis, and kept by the hospital.
Whether a stored sample will do depends on when it was taken, how much there is and what the study needs. Ask whether the study accepts your stored sample or needs a new biopsy.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Metastases
Cancer that has spread from where it began to other parts of the body. “Metastatic” cancer is cancer that has spread this way.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Investigational drug or device
A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.
It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Cancer (malignancy)
Malignancy means cancer. Criteria about another or earlier malignancy ask whether you have had a different cancer, usually within a set number of years.
Some are commonly allowed, such as treated skin cancers other than melanoma and early cancers removed completely — check the exceptions this study lists.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Autoimmune disease
A condition in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease.
Immunotherapy studies often leave out active autoimmune disease, and some name exceptions, such as thyroid disease on replacement hormone. Check the exceptions this study lists.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Immunosuppression
A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.
Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Clinically significant
Judged by the study doctor to matter for your health or for the study. It is a doctor’s decision, so ask the study team if you are unsure whether something counts.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Corticosteroids (steroids)
Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.
Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Hepatitis B tests
Hepatitis B is a virus that infects the liver. These are separate tests: HBsAg positive usually means a current infection (a recent vaccination can briefly cause it too); total anti-HBc (HBcAb) positive means an infection now or in the past; HBV DNA measures how much virus is in the blood.
Some studies accept a past infection if HBV DNA is undetectable, sometimes with antiviral medicine during the study. Check what this study allows.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Hepatitis C tests
Hepatitis C is a virus that infects the liver. An HCV antibody test can stay positive after an infection has cleared (and is occasionally positive without one); an HCV RNA test shows whether the virus is there now.
After treatment, hepatitis C counts as cured when HCV RNA is still undetectable 12 weeks or more after the treatment ended. Studies often accept people cured this way.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
HIV
The human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens the immune system.
Many studies now accept people whose HIV is controlled on treatment, judged by the viral load and the CD4 count. Check the limits this study sets.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
PD-1, PD-L1 and checkpoint inhibitors
PD-1, PD-L1 and CTLA-4 are proteins that act as brakes on the immune system. Checkpoint inhibitors, such as pembrolizumab or nivolumab, block them so the immune system can attack a cancer.
PD-L1 can also be measured in a tumour sample. Some scores count stained tumour cells only (TPS); others also count certain immune cells (CPS). The study names the score and the minimum it uses.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
NYHA class (heart failure)
The New York Heart Association’s four classes of how much heart failure limits physical activity.
Studies set their own limit — many outside heart failure leave out class III–IV, while heart failure studies may ask for a particular class. Check the class this study names.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
QT and QTc
On an ECG, the QT interval is the time the heart’s lower chambers take to activate electrically and recover in each beat. QTc is that time adjusted for heart rate (QTcF by Fridericia’s formula, QTcB by Bazett’s). Some medicines lengthen it, and a long QTc can raise the risk of a dangerous heart rhythm.
The study may name a correction formula and a limit in milliseconds, often around 450–480.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
All patients will receive study interventions (sasanlimab and SBRT) and standard-of-care radical cystectomy.
Drug: Sasanlimab · Radiation: Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy · Procedure: Radical Cystectomy + pelvic lymph node dissection + urinary diversion
Sasanlimab (PF-06801591) is a recombinant humanized monoclonal antibody (immunoglobulin gamma-4 with kappa light chains, IgG4 kappa) directed against programmed death 1 (PD-1). Manufactured by Pfizer, Inc.
Also known as: PF-06801591, PD-1 Inhibitor
This current study is designed to deliver a biologically equivalent dose of 43.2Gy using a strategy of HD hypo-fractionated radiation therapy 8Gy x 3 in combination with Sasanlimab
This will include a cysto-prostatectomy in males or a radical cystectomy with anterior exenteration in females, bilateral pelvic lymph node dissection, and creation of a urinary diversion (ileal conduit, Indiana pouch or orthotopic neo-bladder). Robotic assisted or open surgery will be permitted. Because there is currently equipoise regarding standard or extended template pelvic lymph node dissection, the limits of node dissection will not be protocol mandated. In the standard template, nodal packets will include the common iliac, external iliac, internal iliac (or hypogastric) and obturator nodes. Patients receiving an extended template will have the standard nodes with the addition of the para-aortic, para-caval, pre-sacral, and pre-sciatic node packets. The decision for urinary diversion is multifactorial involving patient factors (e.g., adequate renal function) and preference; thus, it will be made on a case-by-case basis.
Composite outcome for Feasibility and Safety
Combination of Sasanlimab and SBRT will be deemed both feasible and safe (composite outcome) if, after the treatment of 10 patients, ≥ 7 of 10 patients meet all of the following feasibility criteria: 1. Receive at least 1 dose of 2 of Sasanlimab 2. Receive at least 2 of 3 fractions SBRT 3. Undergo radical cystectomy RC within 4 weeks of completing therapy (after end of cycle 2) and meet all of the safety criteria, defined as not experiencing any following Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) toxicities up to 4 weeks after the completion of radical cystectomy: 1. Hematologic toxicity ≥ Grade 4 2. Non-hematologic toxicity ≥ Grade 3 3. Non-hematologic toxicity ≥ Grade 2 lasting \>1 week (except alopecia, emesis, and laboratory abnormalities)
Time frame: From date of registration to date of death due to any cause, assessed up to 4 weeks after radical cystectomy
Clinical benefit rate defined as pathologic complete response (pT0)
Proportion of patients experiencing pathologic complete response (pT0) after the study treatment followed by radical cystectomy.
Time frame: At time of radical cystectomy
Incidence of adverse events graded by NCI CTCAE version 5.0
Graded by National Cancer Institute (NCI) Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) version 5.0.
Time frame: From date of registration to date of death due to any cause, assessed up to 12 weeks after radical cystectomy
Incidence of major surgical complications graded by Clavien-Dindo Scale
Clavien-Dindo scale is widely utilized for grading adverse events (i.e. complications) that may occur as a result of surgical procedures. The severity of the complication increases from grade 1 to grade 5.
Time frame: From date of radical cystectomy to date of death, assessed up to 30 days following surgery
Health Related Quality of Life for Patients with T2-T4 muscle invasive bladder cancer
Patient's health related quality of life survey on 30 items including urinary symptoms, sexual function, urostomy issues, catheter use, and body image will be assessed by The European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QOL C30-BLM 30, in order to assess changes in patient-reported quality of life at baseline and changes. Each item is scored on a 4 point scale, with a higher score reflecting a better quality of life.
Time frame: From date of registration to date of death due to any cause, assessed up to 24 months after radical cystectomy
Overall survival (OS)
Overall Survival is defined as the duration of time from the date of treatment initiation that a patient is still alive.
Time frame: From date of registration to date of death due to any cause, assessed up to 24 months after radical cystectomy
Recurrence free survival (RFS)
RFS is defined as the time from surgery and study treatment to recurrence or death, whichever occurred first.
Time frame: From date of registration to date of death due to any cause, assessed up to 24 months after radical cystectomy
Plan to share: No
This study is active, not recruiting, as verified in Oct 2025. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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Studies of the drug tested here: Sasanlimab
The Methodist Hospital Research Institute →