Re: Conservative management of early bladder rupture after postoperative radiotherapy for prostate cancer.

Sir, In Urology Journal 2008;5:269-71, Basiri and Radfar reported on the serious but rare complication of spontaneous intraperitoneal bladder rupture following salvage radiotherapy for biochemically recurrent prostate cancer.(1) This was successfully managed by conservative methods. Bladder rupture has been described as a complication of both pelvic external beam radiation therapy and brachytherapy in patients with cervical, prostate, and sarcomatous soft tissue malignances, but with a much longer latent period of 7 to 15 years. Unusually, this case occurred following salvage external beam radiation therapy for prostate cancer completed just 8 months previously and following an alternative hyperfractionated schedule of 72 Gy at 1.2 Gy per day as stated.