Urinary biomarkers of non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer: current status and future potential

Abstract

Bladder cancer diagnosis and patient surveillance present a wide range of diagnostic methods but essentially only instrumental approaches are available in the clinical setting. Although numerous new noninvasive biomarkers have been proposed in the last 10 years, few are US FDA-approved for clinical purposes, and none are widely used in routine clinical practice. In this review, we summarize the tests developed for early diagnosis and patient surveillance and verify whether, for any, there is some level of evidence to suggest a real usefulness in a clinical setting.

Keywords::

• early diagnosis
• epigenetic
• FDA marker
• FISH
• gene mutation
• immunoassay
• molecular marker
• noninvasive bladder tumor
• surveillance
• urine

Acknowledgement

The authors thank Dr Grainne Tierney for editing the manuscript.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.