Urine Cytology and Existing Urinary Biomarkers for Bladder Cancer

Urine-based testing would seem to be the obvious diagnostic choice for bladder cancer. Conceptually, an ideal diagnostic test would be simple and application of the test would determine if the disease is present or absent. However, like all diagnostic tests for cancer, urine-based tests for bladder cancer suffer from poor performance, limited clinical utility, and the potential for introducing harm. Consequently, none are universally recommended diagnostic tests for use in the evaluation of patients at risk of having bladder cancer [1–3]. Despite this fact, extensive investment into the research and development of urine-based technologies promising to be better bladder cancer tests continues to be made [4].