Thanks to greater awareness, earlier detection and improving therapeutic agents, people with cancer are living longer than ever before. One of the consequences of living longer is the symptom burden of cancer survivorship, which may have a substantial impact on quality of life for many survivors. One such burden is the pain syndromes resulting from cancer treatments...

Researchers at University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands, have discovered a substance that has an adverse effect on nearly all types of chemotherapy - making cancer cells insensitive to the treatment. Chemotherapy often loses effectiveness over time. It is often unclear how or why this happens...

Molecular Pathogenesis of Non Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer: Implications for Novel Targeted Therapies.

Curr Mol Med. 2011 Sep 9;

Authors: Zachos I, Tzortzis V, Konstantinopoulos PA, Karatzas A, Gravas S, Melekos M, Papavassiliou AG

Abstract
Approximately 70% to 80% of patients with urothelial carcinomas of the bladder are initially diagnosed with non-muscle invasive disease. Superficial, non-muscle invasive bladder cancers (NMIBCs) are managed with cystoscopic transurethral resection of all visible lesions followed by intravesical chemotherapy and/or immunotherapy. Despite this treatment, up to 70% of these tumors will recur within five years and 15% will ultimately progress to muscle-invasive disease, suggesting that novel therapeutic strategies are necessary. Recent studies have greatly advanced our understanding of urothelial carcinogenesis and have highlighted the distinct molecular pathogenesis of NMIBCs versus muscle-invasive bladder tumors. It is now clear that diverse genetic and epigenetic events are driving the oncogenesis of NMIBCs, thereby attesting to their potential as therapeutic targets for these tumors. This article reviews the molecular pathogenesis of NMIBCs, discusses recently completed and ongoing clinical trials and anticipates the future direction of molecular targeted agents in this disease.

PMID: 21902654 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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