A new, non-invasive way of monitoring non-muscle invasive bladder cancer
Bladder cancer is the 5th most common cancer in Europe, and up to 80 % of the patients are diagnosed with non-muscle invasive disease. Monitoring of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) presents a heavy burden on the healthcare systems as well as the patients. Golden standard methods for follow-up are invasive cystoscopies as well as urine cytology tests, which are both dependent on the operator’s expertise and have limitations detecting different types of tumors. Bladder EpiCheck is a newly developed urinary marker based on 15 DNA methylation changes associated with bladder cancer. A recent study from Italy with 243 enrolled patients has shown that this liquid biopsy PCR test has significantly higher sensitivity compared to cytology. The study concluded that Bladder EpiCheck may be used in combination with cytology reducing invasiveness in the follow-up of NMIBC, decreasing discomfort for the patients, and the related costs.
Orion Diagnostica distributes Bladder EpiCheck (Nucleix Ltd) in the Nordics. Read more about the study here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cncy.22152