Patients with clinically node-positive bladder cancer were historically considered to have uniformly poor prognosis and were frequently treated with palliative chemotherapy (CHT) only. Although retrospective data show that long-term survival with combined treatment (surgery + CHT) is possible in one-third of these patients, consensus on a treatment algorithm is still lacking. The aim of the study is to compare the efficacy of different treatment modalities based on data from a population-based cancer registry.