A COMPARISON BETWEEN MICROSATELLITE AND QUANTITATIVE PCR ANALYSES TO DETECT FREQUENT P16 COPY NUMBER CHANGES IN PRIMARY BLADDER-TUMORS

We tested 70 primary bladder tumors for altered copy number of p16 (D9 S1752) by microsatellite analysis and by a quantitative PCR (QPCR) ass ay, These two approaches were fully concordant for 53 tumors, includin g all 39 tumors in which microsatellite analysis detected loss, In add ition, the QPCR method detected useful anomalies in 17 additional case s, including those in which D9S1752 was uninformative, QPCR was abnorm al in 56 of 70 (80%) cases, whereas microsatellite analysis was abnorm al in 39 of 70 (56%) cases, Although QPCR uses more DNA than microsate llite analysis, it represents a rapid, informative technique that can readily detect both chromosome 9p21 deletions and amplifications in pr imary bladder tumors without the need for electrophoretic separation.