Sheffield bladder cancer patient praises cutting-edge trial
10 September 2025
Press contact: Claudia Blake | claudia.blake@nhs.net
A man with bladder cancer who had a cutting-edge immunotherapy drug injected straight into his tumour is praising a groundbreaking trial which could help future patients avoid bladder removal surgery.
Andrew Rodgers, 65, from Hillsborough, received an immunotherapy drug known as atezolizumab directly into his bladder, rather than as an infusion into his veins, in a first-in-human trial known as INVEST.
Led by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in partnership with the Universities of Sheffield and Leeds, the £2.5m trial is the first to investigate if a direct injection of the drug can get the body’s immune system to attack bladder cancer cells, thereby reducing the need for surgical removal of the bladder.
It builds on recent advances in care which have seen a new class of drugs known as immune inhibitor checkpoints significantly improving quality of life for patients living with the advanced form of the disease - with survival rates nearly doubling as a result.
Atezolizumab, an immunotherapy drug which uses a patient’s own immune cells to locate camouflaged cancer cells and then destroy them, is already given as systemic treatment to patients with advanced metastatic bladder cancer once patients progress post chemotherapy.
Breakthrough treatment
However, in INVEST the drug is given as a direct injection in the bladder to those whose cancer has not spread beyond the organs and who are waiting for a cystectomy to remove the whole bladder and whose cancer is curable.
The trial is the first in human study to use atezolizumab directly in the bladder in this way and as a local, rather than whole body, treatment.
Another additional element of the trial involves blood and urine samples being sent off for DNA analysis. This information will help to build up a picture of whether genetic mutations found in a patient’s tumour make them more or less likely to respond to treatment. In future, this could lead to the development of new treatments.
Andrew signed up to the cutting-edge trial in early February - shortly after he learned his bladder cancer, which he had been diagnosed with in January, had spread into his bladder wall.
The lifelong Sheffield United fan, who could not safely undergo chemotherapy due to his low kidney function, received weekly 20-minute atezolizumab bladder injections for five weeks before his scheduled bladder removal surgery on 25 April.
His tumour responded, which put him in a good position prior to surgery.
“I couldn’t do anything about my own diagnosis, but there was a chance to help future generations,” he said.
"All throughout my treatment, the people I’ve met have been absolutely magnificent. It’s been a lot to deal with in such a short space of time, but my tumour shrunk ahead of my surgery, which was amazing, and I’ve been given the all-clear, and there’s been no signs of the cancer in my bladder and lymph nodes following surgery.”
Approximately 21,185 people in England are diagnosed with bladder cancer every year.
Professor Syed Hussain, Chief Investigator and Honorary Consultant at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Sheffield, said:
“We are delighted to be running this trial which aims to see if using atezolizumab locally within the bladder can improve outcomes for patients diagnosed with early-stage bladder cancer. Patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer who are waiting for cystectomy and those with muscle invasive bladder cancer who are at high risk of the cancer returning but are not well enough to undergo chemotherapy are also eligible for this trial. Whilst all patients will still undergo bladder removal, we hope to demonstrate that this may not be necessary in future for a subset of patients.”
The trial, which is being funded by Roche, is a collaboration between the urology and oncology medical specialities at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
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