A side by side comparison of cytology and biomarkers for bladder cancer detection

• Published in: The Journal of urology Vol. 172; no. 3; p. 1123
• Main Authors: Schroeder, Grethchen L, Lorenzo-Gomez, Maria-Fernanda, Hautmann, Stefan H, Friedrich, Martin G, Ekici, Sinan, Huland, Hartwig, Lokeshwar, Vinata
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.09.2004
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Biomarkers - analysis; Cytodiagnosis; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Predictive Value of Tests; Reagent Kits, Diagnostic; Sensitivity and Specificity; Urinary Bladder Neoplasms - diagnosis
• DOI: 10.1097/01.ju.0000134347.14643.ab
• ISSN: 0022-5347

The identification of accurate bladder tumor markers/tests could improve diagnosis, recurrence monitoring and treatment in patients with bladder cancer. In this study we compared the efficacy of the hyaluronic acid (HA)-hyaluronidase (HAase), BTA-Stat (Bard/Bion Diagnostics, Redmond, Washington), Hemastix (Bayer Corp., Elkhart, Indiana) (hematuria detection) and UBC-Rapid (IDL Biotech, Borlänger, Sweden) tests, and cytology to detect bladder cancer. The HA-HAase test measures urinary HA and HAase levels, BTA-Stat detects complement factor-H and H related protein in urine, the Hemastix hemoglobin dipstick detects hematuria and UBC-Rapid detects cytokeratin 8 and 18 fragments in urine. A total of 138 urine specimens from 115 patients were collected at University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, including 59 with active bladder cancer and 79 with a history of bladder cancer (73) or with benign genitourinary conditions (6). Specimens were assayed by the HA-HAase test, BTA-Stat, Hemastix (hemoglobin dipstick) and UBC-Rapid. Cystoscopy and histological findings were used to make the clinical diagnosis. Cytology results were available on 92 patients. In a side by side comparison the HA-HAase test, cytology, BTA-Stat, Hemastix and UBC-Rapid had 88.1%, 70.6%, 52.5%, 50.8% and 35.6% sensitivity, and 81%, 81%, 76.7%, 78.2% and 75% specificity, respectively. The accuracy, and negative and positive predictive values of the HA-HAase test were the highest (84.1%, 90.1% and 77.6%), followed by cytology (77.2%, 82.5% and 68.6%), Hemastix (66.4%, 67.8% and 63.8%), BTA-Stat (66.2%, 67.8% and 63.3%) and UBC-Rapid (57.8%, 60% and 52.5%), respectively. : The HA-HAase test is superior to cytology, BTA-Stat, Hemastix and UBC-Rapid for detecting bladder cancer recurrence. A side-by-side comparison of tumor markers should help identify a marker for monitoring bladder cancer recurrence.