Long before the symptoms

Bladder cancer can be diagnosed 10 years before the first symptoms

Sergey Kolenov, Hi-tech+

Bladder cancer is difficult to detect at an early stage. The best diagnostic method available today is an invasive procedure known as cystoscopy. Specialists are actively trying to find more gentle methods based on the analysis of urine biomarkers, but so far none of them has proved to be sufficiently accurate.

Article by Hosen et al. Urinary TERT promoter mutations are detectable up to 10 years prior to clinical diagnosis of bladder cancer: Evidence from the Golestan Cohort Study published in the journal EBioMedicine – VM.

Researchers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer at WHO managed to find a suitable biomarker. They noticed that many cases of bladder cancer are accompanied by a mutation in the telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter gene. TERT mutations can be detected in urine samples, but until now it was unclear whether they could be used as an early diagnostic tool.

To find out, the team used data from a long-term health study that started in the Iranian province of Golestan in 2004 and covered more than 50,000 people. At the beginning of the project, a bank of biological samples, including urine and blood, was created.

During the study, 38 people developed bladder cancer. Of these, 46.7% had mutations of the TERT gene. At the same time, none of the 125 volunteers from the control group had them identified.

The researchers admit that the sample was small, so they will have to further test the potential biomarker. Nevertheless, they have high hopes for him. If successful, doctors will have a simple and inexpensive test for early detection of bladder cancer.

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