Int Urol Nephrol (2012) 44:761–767 DOI 10.1007/s11255-011-0102-z U R O L O G Y – O R I G I N A L P A P E R Lack of evidence for increased level of circulating urothelial cells in the peripheral blood after transurethral resection of bladder tumors Artur A. Antoniewicz • Agnieszka Paziewska • Michal Mikula • Krzysztof Goryca • Michalina Dabrowska • Slawomir Poletajew • Andrzej Borowka • Jerzy Ostrowski Received: 31 October 2011 / Accepted: 28 November 2011 / Published online: 9 December 2011 The Author(s) 2011. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Purpose Aggressive intervention against the bladder wall during transurethral resection of bladder tumors (TURBT) causes damage and leakage from blood vessels to the bladder lumen. The aim of this study was to determine whether TURBT could increase the level of circulating urothelial cells. Methods Expression of tumor markers, discrimina- tive for nucleated blood cells and urothelium, was evaluated by quantitative (q) RT-PCR on RNA isolated from peripheral blood samples of 51 patients who underwent TURBT for CcT1c bladder tumors. Artur A. Antoniewicz and Agnieszka Paziewska contributed equally. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11255-011-0102-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. A. A. Antoniewicz S. Poletajew A. Borowka Department of Urology, Medical Center for Postgraduate Education, Warsaw, Poland A. Paziewska J. Ostrowski Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Medical Centre for Postgraduate Education, Warsaw, Poland M. Mikula K. Goryca M. Dabrowska J. Ostrowski (&) Department of Oncological Genetics, Maria Sklodowska- Curie Memorial Cancer Center and Institute of Oncology, Roentgena 5, 02-781 Warsaw, Poland e-mail: jostrow@warman.com.pl Results Four of 14 studied genes, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), Collagen a-1(I) chain, Mast/ stem cell growth factor receptor (KIT) and CD47, exhibited signiﬁcant differences in gene expression between controls and cancer patients. While TURBT did not signiﬁcantly increase the number of PCR- positive results of any transcripts, positive RT-PCR detection for EGFR was signiﬁcantly less frequent on day 30 compared to results obtained before surgery. Conclusions Although the results of our study do not provide evidence for increased tumor cell release into the peripheral blood after TURBT, they seem to indicate that EGFR mRNA measurement in the blood may provide useful information for urologists. Keywords Bladder tumor Circulating tumor cells Gene expression mRNA RT-PCR Introduction Most bladder cancers (BCa) are derived from the uroepithelium. Tumors conﬁned to the bladder lining are regarded as non-invasive, while those that invade the bladder muscle are invasive. Transurethral resection of the bladder tumor via a wire loop (TURBT) remains a standard procedure for the diagnosis of BCa, as well as for the treatment of non-muscle invasive tumors [1]. While circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the peripheral blood have been reported in patients with several cancer types, including BCa [2–9], it is well 123