Abstract:

Objective To assess the potential clinical significance of epidermal growth factor receptor （EGFR） mRNA levels in patients with bladder cancer. Methods Fluorescence in situ hybridization was used to compare EGFR mRNA levels between 60 patients with bladder cancer and 30 patients without bladder cancer. EGFR mRNA levels were also correlated with clinico-pathological features of bladder cancer. Results EGFR mRNA was detected in 71.67% of patients， compared to 0 of controls（P<0.05）. Among patients， mRNA levels were significantly higher （P<0.05） in those with tumor infiltration than in those with superficial cancer （100% vs 63.04%），higher in patients in high-grade tumors than in those in low-grade tumors （100% vs 62.22%），and higher in patients with lymph node metastasis than in those without （90.91% vs 60.53%）. Conclusion Overexpression of EGFR mRNA is related to clinical stage，pathological grade and lymph node metastasis in bladder cancer. Measuring mRNA levels may help in cancer staging and in evaluating tumor metastasis.

Key words: Bladder neoplasm, Epidermal growth factor receptor, Fluorescence in situ hybridization, Expression, Clinical significance