Role of Novel Urinary Genomic and Metablomic Markers in Diagnosis of Bladder Cancer in Patients With Hematuria

The Xpert BCa monitor is a novel mRNA-based urine test that measures five mRNA targets (ABL1, ANXA10, UPK1B, CRH, and IGF2) in urine sample by real time RT-PCR. Previous studies had investigated the feasibility and diagnostic performance characteristics of Xpert monitor for surveillance of NMIBC patients (12, 13). It demonstrated a high SN and NPV in relation to urine cytology.

On the other hand, metabolic dysfunction has been implicated in a wide variety of human diseases including BC (14). Growth and division of tumor cells are associated with an increase in the activity of a variety of metabolic pathways. Significant alterations in the carnitine-acylcarnitine metabolic pathways were detected in urine speci¬mens from BC patients compared to those of healthy controls (15). The expression of six genes involved in the carnitine-acylcarni¬tine metabolic pathway (CPT1A, CPT1B, CPT1C, CPT2, SLC25A20, and CRAT) was assessed by Won and colleagues. CRAT and SLC25A20 were found to be significantly down regulated in BC patients (16).

In this context, we aimed in the current study at prospective assessment of diagnostic performance characteristics of Xpert Bladder Cancer Monitor (Xpert Monitor) test and urinary metabolomics (urinary metabolites of tissue mRNA genes expression CRAT and SLC 25A20) for bladder cancer detection in patients with hematuria.