Using micro-RNA expression to predict response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in urothelial carcinoma of the bladder.

299 Background: Urothelial carcinoma of the bladder is among the 5 most common cancers in the US. Despite several clinical trials attempting to determine the best approach to muscle-invasive disease, the optimal treatment modalities and their sequence have not been established. Specifically, the decision to administer neo-adjuvant chemotherapy is currently based solely on clinical parameters, with no validated biomarkers. Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) are short RNA molecules that have roles in post-transcriptional gene expression regulation by binding to mRNAs. They were shown to have cardinal roles in many cancers, and their potential to serve as biomarkers is extensively studied. Our goal was to study whether miRNAs can serve as predictive biomarkers for response to neo-adjuvant chemotherapy in urothelial carcinoma. Methods: miRNAs were extracted from paraffin-embedded pre-operative muscle-invasive tumor biopsies of patients diagnosed with urothelial carcinoma, whose pathological surgical specimen was later found...