Comparison Between 5-Aminolevulinic Acid Photodynamic Diagnosis and Narrow- Band Imaging for Bladder Cancer Detection: A Single-Center Retrospective Cohort Study

Abstract BackgroundNo comparative studies exist between 5-aminolevulinic acid-photodynamic diagnosis (PDD) and narrow-band imaging (NBI) for the detection of urothelial carcinoma. Therefore, we compared 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated PDD with NBI for cancer detection during transurethral resection of bladder tumors.MethodsBetween June 2018 and October 2020, 114 patients and 282 lesions were included in the analysis. Patients were orally administered 5-aminolevulinic acid (20 mg/kg) 2 h before transurethral resection of bladder tumors. The bladder was inspected with white light, PDD, and NBI for each patient and all areas that were positive by at least one method were resected or biopsied. The imaging data were then compared to the pathology results.ResultsThe sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value for detecting urothelial carcinoma were 88.1%, 47.5%, 80.9%, and 61.3% for white light; 89.6%, 22.5%, 74.5%, and 46.2% for PDD; and 76.2%, 46.3%, 78.2%, and 43.5% for NBI, respectively. PPD was significantly more sensitive than NBI for all lesions (p<0.001), including carcinoma in situ lesions (94.6% vs. 54.1%, p<0.001).ConclusionsPDD can increase the detection rate of bladder cancer compared to NBI by greater than 10%. Adding PDD to white light can detect 100% of carcinoma in situ lesions.