PROGNOSTIC FACTORS FOR BLADDER-CANCER

Cancer of the urinary bladder is the fifth most common cancer in men a nd the second most urological malignancy in Western society [17], with an incidence rate per year of 29.8/100 000 males. Bladder tumors are distinguished as either invasive or superficial: invasive tumors are g enerally associated with poor prognosis, while 20-30% of superficial c arcinomas recur and progress to become invasive and metastatic [26, 27 ]. The most common prognostic factors for classification of urothelial cancer are staging and grading, which are based on morphological crit eria. In the past decade, however, other criteria have been developed as a possible prognostic aid to better disease management, such as exp ression of specific cell surface antigens, DNA content, chromosomal ab errations, gene rearrangements and point mutations [26, 7]. Since most tumors of the bladder are carcinomas and are associated with dediffer entiation and high metastatic capability, we investigated whether redu ced expression of so-called differentiation factors in combination wit h increased cell motility might be correlated with tumor progression.