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Media Inquiries: 434-924-5679 GENE CAN PREDICT PROGNOSIS FOR BLADDER CANCER PATIENTS, ACCORDING TO U.Va. RESEARCHERS |
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A gene linked to the spread of cancer may now be able to help predict the severity of bladder cancer and the survival rate of patients with the disease. Researchers at the University of Virginia Health System have discovered that a gene, called RhoGDI2, is not turned on (or expressed) strongly in the malignant tissue of some patients with bladder cancer while it was expressed in the tumors of other patients and in normal non-cancerous bladder tissue. The U.Va. researchers found that lower RhoGDI2 expression in the cancer was statistically associated with lower five-year survival rates. The results, published in the June 1 edition of the journal Clinical Cancer Research, suggest that RhoGDI2 is an independent predictor of prognosis for patients with bladder cancer and is involved in the spread of bladder cancer to other organs (metastasis). The study will be posted online at: http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/ “We are encouraged by these findings and are planning further clinical studies on larger groups of patients treated at other institutions to determine if these results will hold up,” said Dr. Dan Theodorescu, Paul Mellon Professor of urology and molecular physiology/ biological physics at U.Va. and lead author of the study. The American Cancer Society predicts that this year in the Unites States, there will be 60,240 new cases of bladder cancer and 12,710 deaths attributed to it. The Society forecasts that over 1,300 new cases of bladder cancer will be diagnosed in Virginia alone. Bladder cancer occurs more than twice as often in men as in women. Two years ago, Theodorescu and his colleagues at U.Va. first discovered that RhoGDI2 was one of a handful of metastasis suppressor genes. Theodorescu used advanced DNA technology in laboratory models to discover that low levels of RhoGDI2 were found more often in cancer that spread beyond its origin than in localized cancer. “When the gene is active in cancer cells,” Theodorescu said, “a protein is produced that prevents the cancer cell from invading other organs.” Activating the gene in metastatic cancers using gene therapy or other approaches could offer new therapies to treat cancer that has spread to other organs, he said. Dr. Henry Frierson, professor of pathology at U.Va. and Dr. Garret Hampton at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Foundation co-authored this research, supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health. June 1, 2004 |