Clinically significant molecular markers for urologic disease: Focus on bladder, kidney, and prostate cancer

Abstract

The most important tools for making therapeutic decisions include stage and grade for bladder and kidney cancer, as well as PSA for prostate cancer. Unfortunately, all tumors of the same stage and grade do not behave the same, indicating the need for additional markers that can provide more accurate prognostic ability. The exponential increase in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of disease during the past 2 decades has been aided by a large array of bladder, prostate, and kidney cancer biomarkers with potential diagnostic and prognostic value. This article reviews the molecular biomarkers that have shown to be clinically useful in the diagnosis and prognosis of urologic tumors. Ultimately, molecular markers may provide information that can be used to tailor the treatment of individual patients.