Multiple directional DWI combined with T2WI in predicting muscle layer and Ki-67 correlation in bladder cancer in 3.0-T MRI

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the value of 3.0T MRI multi-directional diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) combined with T2WI morphological features and lesion distribution in preoperative prediction of muscle layer invasion of bladder cancer (BC) and the correlation with postoperative Ki-67.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This retrospective study enrolled patients with BC between 2019 and 2021. Patients with muscular invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) or non-muscular invasive BC (NMIBC) were also analyzed by preoperative 3.0T MRI aFostic efficacy.

RESULTS

A total of 186 patients were enrolled. About 27 patients with MIBC (35 lesions in total) and 62 with NMIBC (99 lesions in total). We found the tumor with a larger size, a wide base, and a smaller apparent dispersion coefficient (ADC) value and normalized ADC(nADC) value, without a stalk, presenting a greater risk of muscle invasion. ADC value, nADC value, maximum diameter, and stalk were independently associated with muscle invasion. Lesions located at the bladder fundus or involvement of multiple sites were independently associated with muscle invasion compared to the bladder body. In combination with morphological features, the AUCs of ADC and nADC showed accuracies of 0.925 and 0.947-0.951, respectively. TADC and nTADC showed the best diagnostic efficacy in multiple respects. KI-67 LI was negatively correlated with ADC and nADC values.

CONCLUSIONS

This is the first report in which we found Multi-directional DWI combined with T2WI in 3.0T MRI can be used to predict the muscle layer invasion of bladder cancer. ADC values reflect the muscular invasion of bladder cancer and show a moderate negative correlation with Ki-67. It is especially suitable for bladder cancer patients with renal insufficiency or tumor recurrence.

Trends in disagreement with outside genitourinary pathology diagnoses at an academic center

AIMS

To evaluate the frequencies and types of disagreements in a contemporary urological second-opinion consult service in order to improve pathologist awareness.

METHODS

For 7 years ending 30 October 2021, records were kept of our department's total urologic outside consultation and disagreed-upon cases. Disagreements were categorized according to specimen type and nature of conflict. All grading and staging assignments used International Society of Urological Pathology (ISUP) criteria. Statistical analyses for each specimen type included the percent disagreement. Cohen's kappa analysis was done to measure interrater reliability on the prostate biopsies, prostatectomies, and the bladder biopsies/resections. In addition, for the prostate biopsies, the potential for change in treatment candidacy calculation (CTC), was assessed as sum of changes from cancer to non-malignant tissue or the reverse, plus changes from Gleason Grade group (GG)1 to GG ≥ 2 (3 +4 =7) or the reverse.

RESULTS

Overall mean disagreement rate for all specimens was 15.2%. The highest rate was among 1545 prostate biopsy cases, where 410 contained disagreements (26.5%). 118 (7.6%) met criteria for CTC: 10 cases were altered from cancer to non-cancer, 38 cases downgraded from GG≥ 2 to GG1, and 70 upgraded from GG1 to GG≥ 2. Second opinion downgraded the overall highest GG more often than it upgraded it, with downgrade:upgrade ratios of 64:37 for the GG1/GG2 threshold, 79:67 for the GG2/GG3, and 14:0 for the GG3/GG4. 146 specimen parts had disagreements as to cancer vs. suspicious vs. benign, with 85 undercalled and 61 overcalled. Other rates of disagreement included: prostatectomy 34/198 (17.2%); bladder resection or biopsy 68/591 (11.5%); kidney 27/175 (15.4%); and orchiectomy 9/82 (11.0%). In bladder specimens, overgrading was 6X more frequent than undergrading; and overstaging muscularis propria invasion was 6X more frequent than understaging.

CONCLUSIONS

The review of uropathologic materials before definitive therapy can lead to changes that impact clinical decisions significantly. As an example, for prostate biopsies, candidacy for active surveillance versus definitive treatment hinges on GG1 versus 2 and this distinction constituted most CTC cases. The above findings highlight aspects of urological pathology to be emphasized to residents in training, and pathologists in practice.

Anatomic pathology quality assurance: Developing an LIS based tracking and documentation module for intradepartmental consultations

Background

An electronic intradepartmental consultation system for anatomic pathology (AP) was conceived and developed in the laboratory information system (LIS) in 2019. Previously, all surgical pathology intradepartmental consultative activities were initiated and documented with paper forms which circulated with the pertinent microscopic slides and were eventually filed. In this study, we discuss the implementation and utilization of an electronic intradepartmental AP consultation system.

Methods

Workflows and procedures were developed to organize intradepartmental surgical pathology consultations from the beginning to the end point of the consultative activities entirely using a paperless system that resided in the LIS.

Results

The electronic consult system allowed electronic documentation of all steps of intradepartmental consultative activities. The system provided tracking ability for consulted cases and improved access to consult discussion for all departmental personnel, staff, and trainees. Consultation work queue was created for each pathologist and a summary of individual consultative workload was possible. Documentation of anatomic pathology quality assurance for intradepartmental consultative activity was easily assessed.

Conclusions

The electronic intradepartmental consult system has allowed our department to electronically track intradepartmental consult cases, store the consultative opinion text with the case, record the pathologists involved, and document the consultation for internal quality assurance review as well as for accrediting organizations. Summarization of pathologist workload related to consultative activity was quantifiable and optimization of the consultative process was maximized for education in an academic setting.

Impact of Pathology Review in Adverse Histological Characteristics and pT Stages of Upper Tract Urothelial Cancer in a Multicenter Study

Purpose

Pathology reviews for upper urinary tract cancer (UTUC) remained scarce in the literature. Here, we reported the interobserver variation among the review and local pathologies of featured histologic characteristics for UTUC.

Methods

Patients who underwent definitive surgical treatments for UTUC were retrospectively reviewed for eligibility of pathology review. In the Taiwan UTUC Collaboration cohort, 212 cases were reviewed, of which 154 cases were eligible for pathology review. Agreement between original pathology and review pathology was measured by the total percentage of agreement and by simple kappa statistics. The prognostic impact was analyzed by the Cox regression model with the estimation of hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals.

Results

There were 80 women and 74 men enrolled in this study, and the median age at treatment was 71.7 years. The agreement is moderate agreement for surgical margin status (87.7%; κ = 0.61), tumor grade (82.5%; κ = 0.43), tumor invasiveness (76.6%; κ = 0.45), lymphovascular invasion (70.8%; κ = 0.42) and T stage (67.5%; κ = 0.52). The interobserver agreements for perineural invasion and variant histology identification were slight. Kaplan–Meier analysis for disease-free survival revealed comparable results in local and review pathology for localized (Tis, Ta, T1–2) or advanced T stage (T3–4).

Conclusions

Pathology review of UTUC had minimal impact on clinical practice based on current available disease treatment guidelines. However, significant interobserver variations were observed in featured adverse histopathological characters.

Expression of Nectin-4 in Bladder Urothelial Carcinoma, in Morphologic Variants, and Nonurothelial Histotypes

The antibody-drug conjugate enfortumab-vedotin acts by targeting nectin-4, a protein that is nearly ubiquitously expressed in conventional urothelial cancer. However, expression of nectin-4 in morphologic variants of urothelial carcinoma and nonurothelial histotypes was unknown. Immunohistochemistry for nectin-4 using was performed on 169 patients including 83 with nonmuscle invasive bladder cancer and 86 patients with muscle invasive bladder cancer. Staining was scored for intensity (0 to 3) and extent (% positive cells) using the histological score system, where >15 was considered positive. Overall, 72/83 (87%) samples of nonmuscle invasive urothelial carcinoma were positive, including 29/30 (97%) noninvasive papillary urothelial carcinomas, 7/8 (87.5%) carcinomas in situ, 36/45 (80%) papillary urothelial carcinomas invading the lamina propria. Overall, 50/86 muscle invasive tumors were positive, including 15/22 (68.2%) urothelial carcinomas, 7/10 (70%) squamous cell carcinomas, 3/11 (28%) micropapillary tumors, 4/6 (66%) adenocarcinomas, 2/4 (50%) nested carcinomas, 5/8 (63%) plasmacytoid, 1/10 (10%) sarcomatoid carcinomas, and 0/15 (0%) small cell carcinomas. Whole transcriptome RNA sequencing revealed that compared with conventional urothelial carcinomas, most sarcomatoid carcinomas and all but 2 small cell carcinomas expressed very low levels of nectin-4 mRNA but expressed significant levels of either trop2 or ERBB2, which are the molecular targets of 2 other antibody-drug conjugates-sacituzumab gavitecan (trop2) or trastuzumab deruxtecan (ERBB2/HER2). In summary, our study demonstrates that there is heterogeneity of expression of nectin-4 in morphologic variants of urothelial cancer and nonurothelial histotypes, and suggests that testing expression of nectin-4 should be considered in morphologic variants or nonurothelial histotypes found to have lower expression.

Feasibility and accuracy of pathological diagnosis in en-bloc transurethral resection specimens versus conventional transurethral resection specimens of bladder tumour: evaluation with pT1 substaging by 10 pathologists

AIMS

En-bloc transurethral resection (TUR) of bladder tumour (ERBT) is designed to provide more accurate pathological diagnosis of specimens than conventional TUR of bladder tumour (cTURBT). Some studies have reported that T1 bladder cancer substage could be a prognostic factor in assessing tumour progression, but such substaging has not been widely adopted because of problems with pathological diagnosis using cTURBT specimens. The aim of this study was to evaluate the possible advantages of en-bloc TUR specimens in T1 substaging following assessment by a panel of 10 pathologists.

METHODS AND RESULTS

We assessed the substages in 123 patients (cTURBT, n = 91; ERBT, n = 32) who were diagnosed with pT1 bladder cancer. We randomly selected 10 ERBT specimens and 10 cTURBT specimens with cancer invasion areas equivalent to those of their corresponding ERBT specimens. Ten pathologists performed pT1 substaging for pT1a/b/c and pT1m/e in 20 patients (cTURBT, n = 10; ERBT, n = 10). We evaluated diagnostic times and rates of diagnostic concordance among these pathologists, comparing cTURBT and ERBT. The median diagnostic times per slide were 87.7 s [interquartile range (IQR) 71.9-109.2 s) for cTURBT and 54.7 s (IQR 46.0-59.6 s) for ERBT (P = 0.009). The rate of diagnostic concordance was significantly better for ERBT specimens. For pT1a/b/c, the median concordance rates were 50% for cTURBT and 80% for ERBT (P = 0.02); for pT1m/e, the median concordance rates were 70% for cTURBT and 90% for ERBT (P = 0.05). For pT1a/b/c, the average κ-values between the pathologist and the standard diagnosis were 0.04 for cTURBT and 0.47 for ERBT.

CONCLUSIONS

The use of ERBT specimens shortened the diagnostic time and minimised interobserver variability for T1 substaging compared with the use of cTURBT specimens.

The Role of Imaging in Bladder Cancer Diagnosis and Staging

Bladder cancer (BC) is the most common cancer of the urinary tract in the United States. Imaging plays a significant role in the management of patients with BC, including the locoregional staging and evaluation for distant metastatic disease, which cannot be assessed at the time of cystoscopy and biopsy/resection. We aim to review the current role of cross-sectional and molecular imaging modalities for the staging and restaging of BC and the potential advantages and limitations of each imaging modality. CT is the most widely available and frequently utilized imaging modality for BC and demonstrates good performance for the detection of nodal and visceral metastatic disease. MRI offers potential value for the locoregional staging and evaluation of muscular invasion of BC, which is critically important for prognostication and treatment decision-making. FDG-PET/MRI is a novel hybrid imaging modality combining the advantages of both MRI and FDG-PET/CT in a single-setting comprehensive staging examination and may represent the future of BC imaging evaluation.

Obtaining a second opinion is a neglected source of health care inequalities

Observational studies have detected discrepancies between two expert interpreters of imaging and histopathological studies. Furthermore, in a substantial proportion of patients, an independent second opinion disagreed with the first one. Therefore, it is widely accepted that patients have a right to obtain a second opinion and, in case of divergent opinions, to deliberate and choose the option that they believe is most consistent with their individual circumstances. However, doctors are less likely to inform old and poorly educated patients about the possibility of seeking a second opinion, and this may contribute to healthcare inequalities. Hence the importance of (a) promoting doctors’ self-awareness of a possible tendency to discriminate against old and poorly educated patients, and (b) creating programs within the healthcare system that would help patients in seeking a second opinion, suggest specialists for the specific problem of the patient, and provide tools to reconcile between discrepant opinions.

MiR-192-5p suppresses the growth of bladder cancer cells via targeting Yin Yang 1

Bladder cancer has been identified as one of the most malignant cancers with high incidence and mortality. The underlying mechanisms by which regulate the tumorigenesis of bladder cancer deserve further investigation. Here, we found that miR-192-5p was downregulated in human bladder cancer cell lines and tissues. Overexpression of miR-192-5p significantly inhibited the growth of bladder cancer cells, while depletion of miR-192-5p exerted opposite effect. Bioinformatics analysis and molecular mechanism study identified that miR-192-5p targeted the transcription factor Yin Yang 1 (YY1) and decreased the expression level of YY1. Highly expressed YY1 attenuated the potential tumor suppressive function of miR-192-5p. The expression of miR-192-5p was negatively correlated with that of YY1 in bladder cancer tissues. These results indicated that miR-192-5p might serve as a promising target in bladder cancer diagnosis and therapy.