Evaluation of β-Catenin in Bladder Transitional Cell Carcinoma

Abstract Background Bladder cancer is the fourth most common cancer occurring in United States, second most prevalent cancer in men and tenth most prevalent cancer in women, with age adjusted incidence rate of 24.5 per 100.000 population and mortality rate of 4.2 per 100.000 population per year Because of its high recurrence rate, the actual prevalence of active bladder cancer is estimated to be about 10 times the number of new cases. Aim of the Work This study aims at investigating β-catenin protein expression in bladder transitional cell carcinoma and its possible relation to the clinic-pathological data. Patients and Methods The study was carried out on 80 patients; 60 patients with urothelial Bladder Carcinoma (UBC) and 20 patients with non-malignant lesions (control group); between May 2015 and May 2017. The 60 UBC cases were further divided, according to histopathological criteria, into non-muscle invasive UBC (30 patients) and muscle invasive UBC (30 patients). Results There was a highly a significant difference between β-catenin expression and tumor grade (P = 0.03) ,lymphnode metastasis (P = 0.005), tumor necrosis (P = 0.001) vascular invasion(P = 0.004), and perineural invasion (P = 0.001) No statistical significant relation was found between β-catenin expression either bilharziasis (P = 0.08) ,muscl invasion (p = 0.54) ,or stage (p = 0.7). Conclusion 1-β-Catenin has a role in carcinogenises of UB due to absence of nucleocytoplasmic pattern of β-catenin expression in non- neoplastic cases with its expression in a considerable number of invasive malignant cases and dysplastic urothelium adjacent to carcinoma could refer to the oncogenic role of this expression pattern. Recommendations Further studies on large number of cases of urothelial carcinoma on a longer period of follow up using more accurate diagnostic tools is recommended to elicit the predictive value of these markers on patients’ survival; also further studies on new therapies that target β-catenin or other component of Wnt pathway to detect its efficacy in preventing tumor recurrence or progression especially in non-muscle invasive bladder carcinoma.