Appraisal of diagnostic ability of UCA1 as a biomarker of carcinoma of the urinary bladder

Initial diagnosis of carcinoma of the urinary bladder remains to be a challenge. Urine cytology, as an adjunct to cystoscopy, is less sensitive for low-grade tumors. Urothelial cancer associated 1 (UCA1) is a novel non-coding RNA gene, which plays a pivotal role in bladder cancer progression. Our aim is to investigate the significance of urinary UCA1 for the non-invasive diagnosis of transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) of the urinary bladder. We examined UCA1 expression in a bladder cancer cell line (T24) and in urine of 28 healthy individuals, 46 patients of non-malignant disorders, and 117 cases (69 primary and 48 recurrent cases) of histologically proven TCC prior to transurethral resection by using real-time PCR and compared it with voided urinary cytology. UCA1 expression was found in T24 cell line and also found to be significantly higher in the cancer group as compared to the controls (p < 0.001). UCA1 messenger RNA (mRNA) expression showed a significant (p < 0.05) association with stage and grade (p < 0.05). UCA1 showed a sensitivity of 79.49 % and a specificity of 79.73 % (p < 0.001), whereas urine cytology had a sensitivity of 66.67 % and a specificity of 95.95 % for TCC cases. Higher expression of UCA1 was associated with high grade (G2–G3, sensitivity = 84.09 %) (p < 0.001). UCA1 mRNA expression did not significantly correlate with the patient’s age, sex, and smoking habit (p > 0.05). UCA1 can be used as a non-invasive diagnostic biomarker for TCC bladder as an adjunct to cytology in the early diagnosis of primary urinary bladder cancer.