HER2 Expression in Bladder Cancer: A Focused View on Its Diagnostic, Prognostic, and Predictive Role

Overview

Journal Int J Mol Sci

Publisher MDPI

Specialties Biochemistry
Chemistry
Molecular Biology

Date 2023 Feb 25

PMID 36835131

Authors

Francesca Sanguedolce

Magda Zanelli

Andrea Palicelli

Alessandra Bisagni

Maurizio Zizzo

Stefano Ascani

Maria Carmela Pedicillo

Angelo Cormio

Ugo Giovanni Falagario

Giuseppe Carrieri

Luigi Cormio

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Bladder cancer (BC) is a heterogeneous disease from a molecular, morphological, and clinical standpoint. HER2 is a known oncogene involved in bladder carcinogenesis. Assessing HER2 overexpression as a result of its molecular changes in a routine pathology practice using immunohistochemistry might be a useful adjunct in several scenarios, namely (1) to correctly identify flat urothelial lesions and inverted urothelial lesions in the diagnostic setting; (2) to provide prognostic hints in both non-muscle invasive (NMI) and muscle invasive (MI) tumors, thus supplementing risk stratification tools, especially when evaluating higher-risk tumors such as those with variant morphology; (3) to improve antibody panels as a surrogate marker of BC molecular subtyping. Furthermore, the potential of HER2 as a therapeutic target has been only partly explored so far, in light of the ongoing development of novel target therapies.

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