الفهرس 
Introduction and Review of LiteratureOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Bladder Cancer (BCa) is one of the most common malignancies occurring worldwide. The characteristics of an ideal tumor marker for BCa include a rapid, office-based and inexpensive test that is noninvasive. Also the test should possess high sensitivity and specificity. In addition the test should add to-or, in certain cases, replace-cystoscopy, cytology, and urinalysis. Therefore, the present work was concerned with the identification and quantitative estimation of Epithelial membrane antigen (EMA) in the urine of patients with BCa. The material of the present study consisted of 162 urine samples (130 patients and 32 healthy volunteers) were included in the present study from Urology and Nephrology Center & Clinical Oncology and Nuclear Medicine Department, Mansoura University Hospitals, Mansoura, Egypt. The subjects were classified into 3 groups: BCa patients (n=51), suspicious patients (n=28), bladder cancer-free patients (n=51) and healthy volunteers (n=32). The patients were all diagnosed by abdominal ultrasound, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and/or bone scans, in addition to the histopathology and cystoscopy. The group of healthy volunteers with age range 32 - 55 years. In conclusion, EMA detected at 130 kDa using Western blot and assayed using ELISA can be used for screening and diagnosis of patients with BCa with high sensitivity (84%) compared to cystoscopy and high specificity (96.9%) among healthy individuals. ROC curves of EMA antigen can be accurately used for discriminating patients with BCa from those healthy individuals and bladder cancer-free patients but not from suspicious patients. The urinary EMA detection using ELISA is a simple and highly sensitive method for screening and diagnosis of BCa and has many advantages over the conventional methods. Also, EMA test can detect the lower grade and lower stage of BCa, and therefore, urine EMA may serve as an additional marker for bladder carcinoma.