Introduction and Objectives
High prevalence of bladder carcinoma together with reccurence tendency represent important medical problem in spite of successful early treatment procedures. Local tumor grows as well as metastatic potential is critically dependent of microenvironmental growth factor production. Several chemokines were pointed as important in TCC pathogenesis. On the other side, local specific antitumor immune response represents most important factor that influence tumor growth and spreading and finally disease outcome. Therefore, urine cytokine levels could be valuable indicators of both tumor agressivity and local immune response effectiveness. Our aim was to investigate urine cytokine levels in patients with TCC correlating them to clinical and pathological signs of tumor advances.
Material and Methods
Naturally micturated urine samples were obtained from 40 patients with newly diagnosed bladder cancer. Patients were divided according to cytological, radiological and patohistological findings in group with less (G2, pT1) or more aggressive TCC (G3-G4, pT2-pT3). Concentration of cytokines (IL1b, TNFa, IFNg, IL2, IL4, IL5, IL6, IL8, IL10, IL12) was estimated with commercial flowcytometric test kit.
Results
Levels of IL2, T lymphocyte activating cytokine, together with IL12 were significantly higher in urine samples from patients with more aggressive TCC. IL6 concentration was higher in group with advanced TCC. Most striking finding was significant elevation of TH2 cytokines IL4 and IL5, together with IL8, that reached almoust 10 times more concentrations in urine samples from patients with more aggressive TCC (IL4 = 2279±270 vs 139±133 pg, IL5 = 2498±118 vs 54±50 pg, IL8 = 1863±533 vs 271±197 pg, respectivelly). Levels of IFNg, IL1b, IL10 and TNFa did not differ between two groups.
Conclusions
Our study results indicate that more aggressive bladder tumor forms are associated with local TH2 immune response, together with high IL8 chemokine levels.
Article info
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 European Association of Urology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
