Accurate Staging of Bladder Cancer Proves Crucial for Improving Disease Treatment

Bladder wall biopsy proves a very important prognostic indicator when assessing patients with bladder cancer. Patient survival rates differ significantly between non-muscle-invasive disease and muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC); non-muscle-invasive cancer is linked to lower death rates when compared to MIBC. Recent findings also indicate assessing neoantigen load as a cancer biomarker may help further characterize a patient’s bladder cancer. When considered in conjunction with biopsy findings, such novel information may help doctors determine if immunotherapy can serve possibly as an adjunctive or alternative treatment to traditional surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

References:

1. Welch A. Vogelzang Emphasizes Aggressive Biopsies, Novel Therapies in Urothelial Carcinoma. OncLive website. http://www.onclive.com/conference-coverage/gu-2017/vogelzang-emphasizes-aggressive-biopsies-novel-therapies-in-urothelial-carcinoma. Published 20 February 2017.
2. Schumacher TN, Schreiber RD. Neoantigens in cancer immunotherapy. Science. 2015:348, 69-74. Wang R-F, Wang H Y. Immune targets and neoantigens for cancer immunotherapy and precision medicine. Cell Research. 2017:27,11–37.

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