Bladder Cancer

Bladder Cancer - DiaPat®-BC test

A cystoscopy is only carried out when blood appears in the urine or frequent and painful urination occurs. The DiaPat®-BC test detects bladder cancer with high reliability and enables determination of tumour stage. Analysing the urine sample, this non-invasive diagnostic method avoids negative side effects of cystoscopy and is painless and convenient for the patient.

Advantages of the DiaPat®-BC test 

• Painless (non-invasive urine sample)
• Riskless sampling
• Reliable (detection of bladder cancer with sensitivity >95%)
• Early diagnosis - detection of early stage cancer (sensitivity >85%) 
• Differentiation of superficial and muscle invasive tumours with >85% accuracy

Risk factors:

• advanced age (>50)
• chronic inflammation of the bladder
• smoking
• frequent exposure to cancer-causing chemicals (e. g. petrol oil, vulcanised rubber or dye industry)
• analgesic abuse

Diagnosis of bladder cancer at early stages, when tumour has not yet invaded bladder muscle tissue is of ample importance. At these superficial stages, tumour can be removed by transurethral resection of the bladder (TURB). Whenever invasive tumours are found, radical removal of the bladder, the prostate for men and uterus in addition to ovaries for women becomes necessary.
The determination of tumour stage particularly provides valuable diagnostic information for patients with tumours already penetrating the urothelial layer with uncertain histological staging. Due to the high recurrence rates of resected superficial tumours, the necessity of repeated screening for reappearance pronounces the non-invasive character of the DiaPat® -BC test as a complement to invasive standard procedures.

References:

Theodorescu D, Wittke S, Ross MM et al.
Discovery and validation of new protein biomarkers for urothelial cancer: a prospective analysis.
Lancet Oncol 2006; 7: 230-240

Wittke S, Schiffer E, Bauer HW.
Capillary electrophoresis coupled to mass spectrometry for proteome analysis : An innovative diagnostic method for prostate and bladder cancer.
Urologe A 2007; 46: 733-739

Schiffer E, Mischak H, Theodorescu D, Vlahou A.
Challenges of using mass spectrometry as a bladder cancer biomarker discovery platform.
World J Urol 2008; 26: 67-74

Schiffer E, Vlahou A, Petrolekas A et al.
Prediction of muscle-invasive bladder cancer using urinary proteomics.
Clin Cancer Res 2009; 15: 4935-4943

Prevalence

Cancer of the urinary bladder is a common genitourinary disease. An estimated 63,210 new cases and 26,590 deaths were predicted in 2005 in the USA. Following table summarizes epidemiological data available for bladder cancer (www.urotoday.com):

From the age of 40 onwards, the risk to develop the disease increases with advancing age. Men are affected three times more often by this disease than women.