ABH isoantigens in bladder carcinoma patients grouped according to DNA changes over time.

Eighteen patients with transitional cell bladder carcinoma and increasingly abnormal ploidy were assembled to evaluate the relation over time between ploidy and ABH isoantigen deletion. Fifteen patients with diploid recurrent tumors and 16 with aneuploid tumors over time were used as controls. ABH isoantigen deletion at diagnosis was closely related to cancer death, while isoantigen assessments on recurrences gave less prognostic information. Aneuploidy at diagnosis also indicated an adverse prognosis, as did recurrent bladder carcinoma with deteriorating ploidy. Patients with tumors deleted of isoantigen expression at diagnosis but with normal ploidy had as bad a prognosis as patients with deleted tumors and aneuploidy, indicating that isoantigen deletion may occur earlier than ploidy changes.