Low interleukin-1 alpha messenger RNA levels predict decreased overall survival time of patients with urinary bladder carcinoma

Due to our inability to exactly characterize tumours, many patients with ur inary bladder cancer undergo unnecessary surgery or cytostatic therapy. We have here studied the expression of the cytokine interleukin-1 alpha (IL-1 alpha) in 73 human bladder carcinomas in relation to patient survival, and examined possible relationships between IL-1 alpha and urokinase plasminoge n activator (uPA) expression. Expression levels of IL-1 alpha and uPA mRNA were determined by RT-PCR using the quantitative TaqMan technique. The leve ls of IL-1 alpha mRNA expression did not differ significantly between tumou rs of different grade or stage. Calculation of the overall survival rates s howed a decreased overall survival time for patients with low levels of IL- 1 alpha mRNA in their tumours (log rank; P= 0.0002, median follow up: 37 mo nths). Low tumoral IL-1 alpha expression predicted decreased survival of pa tients with poorly differentiated tumours (P < 0.005) and of patients with invasive tumours (P = 0.02). uPA expression was about 4-fold increased in p oorly differentiated rumours. High levels of uPA mRNA were associated with decreased overall survival times (log rank; P = 0.032, n = 60). We conclude that IL-1<alpha> is important for bladder cancer biology, and that measure ments of this cytokine may be useful in pre-treatment characterization of u rinary bladder cancer. (C) 2001 Cancer Research Campaign.