Prognostic markers of urothelial cancer

intense efforts are being made to identify prognostic markers in superficia l and muscle invasive bladder cancer in order to get more detailed informat ion on the biological properties of urothelial cancer. Tumor associated ant igens, angiogenetic factors and their inhibitors, cell adhesion molecules, cell cycle regulating genes and proteins, oncogenes and tumor suppressor ge nes are subjects of clinical investigations. This article provides a contemporary review of prognostic factors in bladde r cancer and their possible clinical implication. A better characterization of urothelial cancer can be anticipated from new technologies allowing ana lysis of multiple genes or gene products in an automated one-step procedure .