Erdafitinib as a Novel and Advanced Treatment Strategy of Metastatic Urothelial Carcinoma

Urothelial carcinoma has become the ninth most common malignancy in the world. Since the 1980s, diverse studies and treatment methods came out with their possible effects along with certain limitations. Initially, platinum chemotherapy was considered as first-line treatment of the disease. Although it was proved to be effective initially, the most number of cases reported the reoccurrence of the disease. Furthermore, aberrant ligand-dependent and constitutive ligand-independent fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) signaling has been reported in a large number of solid tumors, including urothelial carcinoma that became the basis for FGFR inhibition for the treatment of the disease. Erdafitinib is a pan-FGFR inhibitor that was recently approved in the USA for the treatment of locally advanced or metastatic FGFR3 or FGFR2 urothelial carcinoma. The drug is also being investigated as a treatment for other cancers, including cholangiocarcinoma, liver cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, prostate cancer, lymphoma cancer and oesophageal cancer. This article summarizes the various treatments that evolved for bladder cancer till now, a brief description of the biology of FGFR inhibition, clinical pharmacology, and various clinical trials of erdafitinib.