Increased temperature of malignant urinary bladder tumors in vivo: The application of a new method based on a catheter technique

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the existence of any ther mal difference between malignant tumors and inflammatory benign lesions of the human urinary bladder and to determine whether it correlates with tumor angiogenesis quantification. Patients and Methods: A new method, developed in our institute, is introduc ed to detect temperature in human urinary bladder, in vivo. This method is based on a thermography catheter. We calculated the differences of the temp erature of the solid tumor and of a normal area (DeltaT) on 20 subjects (me an age, 72.5 years; 95% confidence interval [CI], 68.5 to 76.4), According to the biopsy histology, Eight (40%) patients had benign tumors, and 12 (60 %) had malignant tumors. Results: We found significant differences of DeltaT between patients with b enign and malignant tumor (9 < .001). Also, differences were found for the mean values of angiogenesis level between malignant and benign rumors (P = .0261), and a moderated positive correlation was estimated between the degr ee of angiogenesis and <Delta>T (P = .02). Based on logistic regression ana lysis, we found that a I-degree increase of DeltaT triples the odds of a pa tient having a malignant tumor (odds ratio = 2.91;95% CI, 1.97 to 7.78; P < .001), adjusted for the degree of angiogenesis (P = .0236) and the grade o f tumor (P < .001). A threshold point of DeltaT = 0.7 degreesC was determin ed, with sensitivity 83% and specificity 75%. Conclusion: These findings suggest that the calculated difference of temper ature between normal tissue and neoplastic area could be a useful criterion in the diagnosis of malignancy in tumors of the human urinary bladder. (C) 2001 by American Society of Clinical Oncology.