BLCA-4 level is useful to detect upper urinary tract urothelial cell carcinoma - Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Upper urinary tract urothelial cell carcinomas (UUT-UCCs) are rare but usually invasive at diagnosis.

Early diagnosis of UUT-UCCs is thus warranted. UUT has the same embryological origin with bladder and BLCA-4 is a highly sensitive and specific marker for bladder cancer. We intend to investigate the viability of BLCA-4 in detecting UUT-UCCs.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Urines from 30 UUT-UCC patients, 10 ureteral polyp patients, 20 infected patients with incarcerated ureteral stones, and 30 normal controls were included. BLCA-4 antibody was produced and applied in an indirect ELISA assay.

RESULTS: Urinary BLCA-4 is significantly higher in UUT-UCC group than «Polyp» group (P=0.0017), «Infection» group (P< 0.0001), or « Normal» group (P< 0.0001). The «Polyp» group is also higher than «Infection» group (P=0.015), or «Normal» group (P=0.0009). ROC curve revealed at cut-off of 5.5×10-4A, sensitivity was 93.3% and specificity was 100%. When grouped as ureteral mass vs normal, same cut-off value yielded 93.3% sensitivity and 83.3% specificity. At 2.4×10-4A, sensitivity was 56.7% and specificity was 97.2%.

CONCLUSIONS: Urinary BLCA-4 is also highly specific in UUT-UCCs detection. For incidentally identified ureteral mass, BLCA-4 can be considered an auxiliary indicator besides biopsy.

Written by:
Feng CC, Wu Z, Jiang HW, Wen H, Guan M, Ding Q.   Are you the author?
Servicio de Urología, Hospital Huashan, Universidad Fudan, Shanghai, China.

Reference: Actas Urol Esp. 2012 Nov;36(10):597-602.


PubMed Abstract
PMID: 22998857

Article in English, Spanish.

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