Changing landscape of diagnosis and treatment of bladder cancer

Urothelial bladder cancer (BC) is predicted to cause an estimated 18,000 deaths, with an expected 76,960 new cases, in 2016. Undoubtedly, BC is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Additionally, over 4 billion dollars is spent annually on BC treatment in the United States, making it one of the most expensive cancer treatments to date. As an experienced urologist and scientist working in BC research, I agreed to take on the responsibility of a special guest editor on BC biomarkers and therapy. One of my goals was to provide literaturebased evidence of where we are and where we need to go to better take care of the patients we see in the clinic daily. Fortunately, I was able to recruit 10 outstanding multidisciplinary reviewers, consisting of translational scientists and urologists who have strong expertise in the field. The most important goal in preventing and diagnosing nonmuscle invasive bladder cancer is bladder preservation. The first review titled “Active surveillance for nonmuscle invasive bladder cancer” by Miyake et al. [1] at the Nara Medical University provides an excellent review of the active surveillance (AS) of BC. According to the National Cancer Institute Dictionary of Cancer Terms, AS is defined as “a treatment plan that involves closely watching a patient’s condition but not giving any treatment unless there are changes in test results that show the condition is getting worse.” The purpose of AS is to avoid or delay the adverse effects of excessive surgical intervention and increased expenses. To be considered for AS, patients should have low-grade and small tumors (<10 mm), no history of high-grade tumors, negative urinary cytology results before and during AS, and most importantly, patient willingness to participate in the surveillance protocol. In “Dietary factors associated with bladder cancer,” by Changing landscape of diagnosis and treatment of bladder cancer Editorial