Histopathology Chromosomal Changes in Rare Histologic Variants of Bladder Cancer using the UroVysion FISH assay

Student Investigator for MSc project: Tracy Bright BMS

The UroVys ion FISH assay has been FDA approved for the detection, and tumour recurrence surveillance, of typical Urothelial Carcinoma (UC) in urine cytology. This has enabled urine cytologies previously reported as atypical or suspicious for malignancy to confidently be converted to a benign or malignant diagnosis; thus reducing the number of cystoscopies and bringing about earlier diagnosis of recurrent tumours. Little data exists on the utility of UroVysion FISH in detecting the rarer UC variants and non urothelial carcinomas which together comprise 10% of all bladder cancers. This study seeks to assess the frequency of genetic abnormalities using UroVysion FISH in these rarer bladder cancer variants as compared to typical Urothelial Carcinoma in paraffin embedded bladder cancer tissue. A similar or even greater frequency of these abnormalities will enable us to postulate that UroVysion FISH is as good at detecting these bladder cancer variants as it is at detecting typical UC in urine samples and thus further endorse its use. A comparison of the observed characteristics of each bladder cancer variant group will be made with reference to the enumeration of chromosomes 3, 7, 17 and the specific locus 9p21, chromosomes evidenced to be frequently altered in bladder cancer.