Diagnostic and Prognostic Markers in Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer has the highest recurrence rate of any solid tumor. Due to the need for lifelong surveillance, the per-patient cost of managing bladder cancer is among the highest for any cancer. There has been growing activity in the development of novel markers for bladder cancer detection; the ultimate goal of these novel markers would be to replace and/or complement cystoscopy as a sensitive and noninvasive surveillance tool. Besides, with recent advances in techniques, an extremely large number of new prognostic markers have been identified. New biomarkers that are predictive of outcomes would help clinicians provide the risk-stratification of patients and serve as prognostic indicators for individual patients. Continuing identification of new markers in bladder cancer will enhance future diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to bladder cancer. We invited investigators to contribute articles that will stimulate continuing efforts to leverage biomarkers to improve diagnostic accuracy, discover the molecular patho-physiology underlying bladder cancer, develop strategies to treat these conditions, and evaluate the prognosis. The purpose of this special issue is to give a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge regarding diagnostic and prognostic markers in bladder cancer. Several studies have indicated that steroid hormones and their receptor signals, especially androgens/estrogens and androgen/estrogen receptors, in bladder cancer, have critical roles in tumorigenesis and tumor progression. In one review, H. Ide and H. Miyamoto summarized that steroid hormone receptors and related signals can serve as biomarkers of urothelial tumors, especially their prognosticators. In " Association of Cytokeratin and Vimentin Protein in the Genesis of Transitional Cell Carcinoma of Urinary Bladder Patients, " A. H. Rahmani et al. performed immuno-histochemistry and investigated cytokeratin and vimentin in urothelial cancer cases and inflammatory lesions. They concluded that both markers cytokeratin and vimentin will be helpful markers in the early diagnosis of urothelial carci-noma. M. S. Wettstein et al. evaluated CD73 expression immu-nohistochemically in 174 patients with a primary urothelial carcinoma. They found that high CD73 expression was associated with favorable clinicopathological features such as lower stage, lower grade, less adjacent carcinoma in situ, and lower Ki-67 proliferation index as well as with better outcome. H. Yang et al. investigated the correlation between the urine soluble Fas (sFas) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in patients with urothelial bladder carcinoma. They reported that the urinary sFas levels and the VEGF expression were correlated significantly and they might play important roles in the occurrence and progression of …