Department of BioMedical Research, Urology Research Laboratory, University of Bern, 3008 Bern, Switzerland.
Department of Urology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, 3008 Bern, Switzerland.
Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Aug 7;21(16):5670. doi: 10.3390/ijms21165670.
Bladder cancer is a heterogeneous disease that is not depicted by current classification systems. It was originally classified into non-muscle invasive and muscle invasive. However, clinically and genetically variable tumors are summarized within both classes. A definition of three groups may better account for the divergence in prognosis and probably also choice of treatment. The first group represents mostly non-invasive tumors that reoccur but do not progress. Contrarily, the second group represent non-muscle invasive tumors that likely progress to the third group, the muscle invasive tumors. High throughput tumor profiling improved our understanding of the biology of bladder cancer. It allows the identification of molecular subtypes, at least three for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (Class I, Class II and Class III) and six for muscle-invasive bladder cancer (luminal papillary, luminal non-specified, luminal unstable, stroma-rich, basal/squamous and neuroendocrine-like) with distinct clinical and molecular phenotypes. Molecular subtypes can be potentially used to predict the response to treatment (e.g., neoadjuvant chemotherapy and immune checkpoint inhibitors). Moreover, they may allow to characterize the evolution of bladder cancer through different pathways. However, to move towards precision medicine, the understanding of the biological meaning of these molecular subtypes and differences in the composition of cell subpopulations will be mandatory.
膀胱癌是一种异质性疾病,目前的分类系统无法描绘。它最初被分为非肌肉浸润性和肌肉浸润性。然而,在这两个类别中都有临床和遗传上不同的肿瘤。将其分为三组可能更能说明预后的差异,可能也能说明治疗选择的差异。第一组代表的是大多数复发但不进展的非浸润性肿瘤。相反,第二组代表的是非肌肉浸润性肿瘤,可能进展为第三组,即肌肉浸润性肿瘤。高通量肿瘤分析提高了我们对膀胱癌生物学的认识。它可以识别分子亚型,至少有三种非肌肉浸润性膀胱癌(I 型、II 型和 III 型)和六种肌肉浸润性膀胱癌(腔乳头状、腔非特指型、腔不稳定型、基质丰富型、基底/鳞状和神经内分泌样),具有不同的临床和分子表型。分子亚型可以用于预测治疗反应(例如,新辅助化疗和免疫检查点抑制剂)。此外,它们可能允许通过不同的途径来描述膀胱癌的演变。然而,为了迈向精准医学,必须了解这些分子亚型的生物学意义以及细胞亚群组成的差异。