Molecular Classification of Bladder Cancer
type: CreativeWork
description: Decisions in the treatment of bladder cancer today are based on clinical and pathological risk variables such as tumor stage and tumor grade. The importance of these conventional risk variables is well documented since more than 10 years, and they are used routinely in the clinics. Over the last ten years, cancer research has seen a gradual transition towards personalized medicine, i.e. the exploitation of specific molecular properties in the treatment of tumors. The starting point for personalized medicine is a taxonomy of the tumor type, where genome, transcriptome, and/or proteome data is used to define molecular subtypes that make sense from biological and clinical viewpoints. The overall aim of the work presented in this thesis is to define the major gene expression subtypes of bladder tumors. The gene expression based subtypes should be viewed as a framework which can be refined either by the integration of genomic, epigenetic, or proteomic data or by the analysis of larger patient cohorts so that the subtypes can be described in greater detail. An exhaustive tumor classification should be based on biological similarity between tumors, and not only group together tumors with similar clinical risk profile. This will increase the probability that the taxonomy is relevant in the evaluation of novel therapies that function by altering pathways or transcriptional programs. In paper 1 we define the two major subtypes of bladder cancer, termed molecular subtype 1 and 2 (MS1 and MS2). In paper 2, MS1 and MS2 are subdivided into five major subtypes named Urobasal A, Urobasal B, Genomically Unstable, SCC-like, and Infiltrated, named after their dominating molecular characteristics. The subtypes were identified in an unsupervised manner and were identified also in external data sets, showing their general applicability. Secondary to the aim of tumor classification is the evaluation of the potential prognostic value of the described subtypes. To allow for clinical compari…
abstract: Decisions in the treatment of bladder cancer today are based on clinical and pathological risk variables such as tumor stage and tumor grade. The importance of these conventional risk variables is well documented since more than 10 years, and they are used routinely in the clinics. Over the last ten years, cancer research has seen a gradual transition towards personalized medicine, i.e. the exploitation of specific molecular properties in the treatment of tumors. The starting point for personalized medicine is a taxonomy of the tumor type, where genome, transcriptome, and/or proteome data is used to define molecular subtypes that make sense from biological and clinical viewpoints. The overall aim of the work presented in this thesis is to define the major gene expression subtypes of bladder tumors. The gene expression based subtypes should be viewed as a framework which can be refined either by the integration of genomic, epigenetic, or proteomic data or by the analysis of larger patient cohorts so that the subtypes can be described in greater detail. An exhaustive tumor classification should be based on biological similarity between tumors, and not only group together tumors with similar clinical risk profile. This will increase the probability that the taxonomy is relevant in the evaluation of novel therapies that function by altering pathways or transcriptional programs. In paper 1 we define the two major subtypes of bladder cancer, termed molecular subtype 1 and 2 (MS1 and MS2). In paper 2, MS1 and MS2 are subdivided into five major subtypes named Urobasal A, Urobasal B, Genomically Unstable, SCC-like, and Infiltrated, named after their dominating molecular characteristics. The subtypes were identified in an unsupervised manner and were identified also in external data sets, showing their general applicability. Secondary to the aim of tumor classification is the evaluation of the potential prognostic value of the described subtypes. To allow for clinical compari…
author: Sjödahl, Gottfrid
language: eng
keywords: Cancer and Oncology, Bladder cancer, Subtype, Classification
date published: 2013
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:59:36Z
provider: University of Lund
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Oncology, Lund