Comparison of the clonality of urothelial carcinoma developing in the upper urinary tract and those developing in the bladder

• Published in: SpringerPlus Vol. 2; no. 1; p. 412
• Main Authors: Wang, Yuding, Lang, Michael R, Pin, Christopher L, Izawa, Jonathan I
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01-01-2013; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Humanities and Social Sciences; Medicine; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Urology; Transitional cell carcinoma; Urothelial carcinoma; Bladder cancer; Upper urinary tract cancer
• ISSN: 2193-1801; 2193-1801
• DOI: 10.1186/2193-1801-2-412

Purpose
To identify the origin of synchronous and metachronous urothelial carcinoma (UC) of the bladder and upper urinary tract to get a better understanding of the basic mechanism behind the multifocality of UC, which may provide a sound bases for the future development of new strategies for detection, prevention and therapy.
Methods
Six patients with UC of the bladder and synchronous or metachronous UC of the upper urinary tract were studied. Genetic analysis involving the study of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) has been evaluated on their tumours using well characterised and new markers of UC (D9S171, D9S177, D9S303 and TP53).
Results
Five of the six patients demonstrated informative results. Four of five (80%) of patients had synchronous or metacharonous UC tumour and showed patterns of LOH consistent with tumorigenesis from monoclonal tumour origin. One of five (20%) patients exhibited a LOH consistent with oligoclonal tumorigenesis.
Conclusion
These findings suggest that both the monoclonal and field cancerization theory of tumorigenesis may play a role in tumors of the urothelial tract. However, more data is needed.