Diagnosis of bladder cancer using fluorescence in situ hybridization

Bladder cancer is the most common malignant tumor of the urinary system, of which more than 90% are transitional cell carcinomas, and a few are squamous cell carcinomas and adenocarcinomas. Nearly 30% of transitional cell carcinoma patients have myometrial invasion at the time of initial diagnosis, and the remaining 70% are superficial bladder cancers. The main treatment methods include transurethral cystectomy and intravesical adjuvant therapy. More than half of the patients will relapse, so early diagnosis and long-term follow-up monitoring of bladder cancer are particularly important.

Currently, the main means of diagnosing and screening bladder cancer are cystoscopic biopsy and urine cytology. Cystoscopy has a high diagnostic rate, but it is invasive and painful for patients, especially for male patients. It is also difficult to identify microlesions and carcinoma in situ. Although urine exfoliated cytopathology is non-invasive, the positive rate is only 8% to 46%. The results are subjective and easily affected by infection, stones, etc., resulting in false positives.

A recent study shows that the use of fluorescence in situ hybridization technology to diagnose bladder cancer can advance the diagnosis of bladder cancer by 3 to 6 months. This method has the advantages of being fast and non-invasive. It only requires the use of the patient's urine or bladder washing fluid to detect tumor exfoliated cells, and the test report can be obtained within 24 hours. Today, fluorescence in situ hybridization diagnostic reagents have been completely domestically produced, and the price is about 70% lower than that of imported reagents, which makes it possible to achieve the widespread promotion of this technology in clinical practice.