Molecular Abnormalities Of Bladder Cancer In The Chinese And Their Potentials In The Diagnosis

Bladder cancer is one of the most common malignancies worldwide. Its incidence ranks number one among the urinary tumors in China. Successful treatment of bladder cancer, which depends largely on early detection, is the key to improve survival rate and life qualities of patients with bladder cancer. The golden standard for diagnosis of this disease is cystoscopy. However, cystoscopy is costly and invasive, and, therefore, is not useful as a routine screening tool for detecting bladder cancer. Urine cytology is a common non-invasive procedure for detecting the disease, but the sensitivity is poor.Microsatellite analysis of voided urine sediments is a recently developed molecular technology for the detection of bladder cancer with high sensitivity and specificity. However, the patients in previous studies were all Caucasians, and the potential of microsatellite analysis to detect bladder cancer in other ethnic groups is unknown. In the current study, we explored the practical value of microsatellite analysis for detecting bladder cancer in a Chinese population. We also performed fine deletion mapping on the frequently deleted chromosome regions in bladder cancer and investigated the mutation and protein expressions status of the possible target tumor suppressor genes. We found that:1. The majority of the microsatellites for the diagnosis of bladder cancer in Americans were not suitable detection markers for Chinese patients because of either a low heterozygous rate or a low frequency of alterations.