Comparison of nuclear matrix protein 22 and bladder tumor antigen in urineof patients with bladder cancer

Recently, two new tumor markers for bladder cancer have been introduced: NM P22 test and BTA TRAK assay. This study was designed to evaluate the urinar y values of these two proteins using quantitative enzyme immunoassays in we ll microplates. Urine samples from 47 healthy subjects, 26 with benign geni tourinary disorders and 109 patients with a histological diagnosis of bladd er cancer were collected. The specificity, the positive predictive value, t he negative predictive value and the efficiency were established for NMP 22 and BTA, and the cut off values were fixed at a specificity of 95% in the benign disease group (12 U/ml and 23 U/ml respectively). We observed a very high concordance between the two urinary tumor markers (73%), although the overall sensitivity of BTA in bladder cancer patients seems to be better t han that of NMP22 (62% vs 54% respectively), especially in the superficial disease group (36% for BTA and 14% for NMP22).