Cystoscopy is the gold standard for surveillance of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC), but the procedure is invasive and has suboptimal accuracy. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential of analyzing urine samples for the presence of urine tumor DNA (utDNA) to replace cystoscopy for surveillance of bladder cancer recurrence. In this longitudinal, prospective, and observational study, 47 patients were followed for recurrence for 2 years, involving analysis of utDNA using the BladMetrix DNA methylation biomarker test at each cystoscopy. In total, utDNA was detected in 21/23 recurrences (91% sensitivity), including 5/5 T1, T2, and carcinoma in situ (CIS) tumors (100%) and 10/12 Ta tumors (83%), with < 1% false-negative test results. Importantly, utDNA analysis showed the potential to reduce the number of cystoscopies by 55%, benefitting 79% of the patients. Eleven of 23 recurrences (48%) were detected earlier with utDNA than with cystoscopy, and distinct patterns of residual utDNA post-surgery indicated minimal residual disease (MRD) or field effect in 6% and 15% of the patients, respectively. In conclusion, utDNA analysis shows high sensitivity to detect tumor recurrence, potential to reduce the number of cystoscopies, and promise to guide patient-specific surveillance regimens.

Background Cystoscopy is the gold standard for bladder cancer detection, but is costly, invasive and has imperfect diagnostic accuracy. We aimed to identify novel and accurate DNA methylation biomarkers for non-invasive detection of bladder cancer in urine, with the potential to reduce the number of cystoscopies among hematuria patients. Results Biomarker candidates (n = 32) were identified from methylome sequencing of urological cancer cell lines (n = 16) and subjected to targeted methylation analysis in tissue samples (n = 60). The most promising biomarkers (n = 8) were combined into a panel named BladMetrix. The performance of BladMetrix in urine was assessed in a discovery series (n = 112), consisting of bladder cancer patients, patients with other urological cancers and healthy individuals, resulting in 95.7% sensitivity and 94.7% specificity. BladMetrix was furthermore evaluated in an independent prospective and blinded series of urine from patients with gross hematuria (n = 273), achieving 92.1% sensitivity, 93.3% specificity and a negative predictive value of 98.1%, with the potential to reduce the number of cystoscopies by 56.4%. Conclusions We here present BladMetrix, a novel DNA methylation urine test for non-invasive detection of bladder cancer, with high accuracy across tumor grades and stages, and the ability to spare a significant number of cystoscopies among patients with gross hematuria.

Background Despite the efforts to describe the molecular landscape of esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) and its precursor lesion Barrett’s esophagus (BE), discrepant findings are reported. Here, we investigated the prevalence of selected genetic ( TP53 mutations and microsatellite instability (MSI) status) and epigenetic (DNA promoter hypermethylation of APC , CDKN2A , MGMT , TIMP3 and MLH1 ) modifications in a series of 19 non-dysplastic BE and 145 EAC samples. Additional biopsies from adjacent normal tissue were also evaluated. State-of-the-art methodologies and well-defined scoring criteria were applied in all molecular analyses. Results Overall, we confirmed frequent TP53 mutations among EAC (28%) in contrast to BE, which harbored no mutations. We demonstrated that MSI and MLH1 promoter hypermethylation are rare events, both in EAC and in BE. Our findings further support that APC , CDKN2A , MGMT and TIMP3 promoter hypermethylation is frequently seen in both lesions (21–89%), as well as in a subset of adjacent normal samples (up to 12%). Conclusions Our study further enlightens the molecular background of BE and EAC. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the largest studies addressing a targeted analysis of genetic and epigenetic modifications simultaneously across a combined series of non-dysplastic BE and EAC samples.