Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) are reporting at the annual American Association for Cancer Research meeting in New Orleans that they have found the first specific marker that distinguishes tissues from individuals with bladder cancer from those without disease and that can be easily isolated from urine. The marker, BLCA-4, is a tissue matrix protein found inside the nucleus of bladder cancer cells. The investigators detected BLCA-4 in 75 percent of bladder cancer samples studied, in 100 percent of normal tissue from bladders containing tumors and in none of normal bladders from organ donors.
"Our results indicate that BLCA-4 appears in tissue before the tissue becomes cancerous. Detecting this marker would be an easy, effective way to find people at risk of bladder cancer or people with early stages of disease," said Robert Getzenberg, Ph.D., assistant professor in the departments of pathology, medicine and pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh and director of basic research at UPCI's Prostate and Urologic Cancer Center. "We also are confident that BLCA-4 could provide a useful tool and/or follow-up indicator in patients with bladder cancer. Moreover, it may provide new bladder cancer specific targets for treatment."