1988 Volume 79 Issue 11 Pages 1811-1817
Thirty-seven patients with transitional bladder cancer were given a 0.5-hour intravenous infusion of bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) at the time of endoscopic biopsy or transurethral resection to label tumor cells in DNA synthesis phase (S-phase). The tumor specimens were fixed with 70% ethanol, embedded in paraffin, sectioned, and stained by an indirect immunoperoxydase method using anti-BrdU monoclonal antibody as the first antibody. The BrdU labeling index, S-phase fraction (SPF), determined by counting the number of BrdU-labeled cells in the tissue sections. Almost all of grade 1 tumor had an SPF lower than 5% and the mean SPF was 2.7±31.6% (mean±SD), while the means for grade 2 and grade 3 tumor were 8.3±2.1% and 16.7±4.1%, respectively. (p<0.01)
The average SPF for non-invasive tumor (24 cases) and invasive tumor (13 cases) were 6.9±6.0% and 13.3±5.6%, respectively (p<0.05). thus, transitional bladder cancer with a SPF greater than 10% appear to be faster and more invasive than those with an SPF less than 10%; a higher SPF indicates biological malignancy.
Our preliminary results suggest that the measurement of the BrdU labeling index of bladder tumors is a new objective and quantitative assay of the biological potential of individual tumors.
