Germline prognostic markers for urinary bladder cancer: Obstacles and opportunities

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

Urinary bladder cancer is a heterogeneous disease with diverse genetic and environmental risk factors that can influence disease risk or clinical course for recurrence, progression, and survival. Therefore, identification of these factors is paramount for disease prevention and optimal clinical management of bladder cancer patients. Of particular interest is the need to identify molecular biomarkers that can give accurate assessment of tumor biological potential and to predict treatment response. Recent advances in molecular biology, cytogenetic, and genomic research have spurred discovery efforts for novel genetic, epigenetic, and proteomic biomarkers that are prognostic for cancer. This review focuses on some of the important germ line polymorphisms found to be correlated with clinical outcomes in bladder cancer. So far, most of the identified candidate loci were based on prior knowledge of pathogenesis and had not been validated for clinical applications. The future challenges are to analyze the wealth of information from whole-genome studies, to understand the underlying biological mechanisms of these associations, the network of gene-gene and gene-environment interactions, and to apply these markers for the identification of high-risk population for targeted, personalized therapy.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)524-532
Number of pages9
JournalUrologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations
Volume30
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2012

Keywords

  • Bladder cancer
  • Clinical outcome
  • Polymorphisms
  • Prognostic markers

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Oncology
  • Urology

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