ABSTRACT

The majority of bladder cancers seen in the clinic are of non-muscle invasive (superficial) type. Recurrences following therapy are frequent and requiring surveillance by urine cytology and cystoscopy. In addition, the risk of progression is likewise high.

Conventional histopathologic evaluation is inadequate to accurately predict the behavior of most bladder cancers. The need to establish which non-muscle invasive cancers will recur or progress and which invasive cancers will metastasize has led to the identification of a variety of potential prognostic markers for bladder cancer patients. However, none of the biomarkers reported to date have shown sufficient sensitivity and specificity for detecting and predicting the behavior of bladder cancer.

At last years, much work has been done to identify genetic alterations in bladder cancer. Hopefully, information at the molecular level will help improve current methods of risk stratification in the near future.