UroToday - In a state of the art lecture at the plenary session at the AUA, Dr Barton Grossman from MD Anderson Cancer Center asked the question: "Is screening for bladder cancer ready for prime time?" and came back with a "No". He cited studies which indicate that this issue should be studied; for example Dr Messings data which suggest that screening asymptomatic patients might allow detection at early stages and Dr Lotan's modeling data which suggest that screening for bladder cancer might result in savings of over 100,000 dollars per annum per 1000 patients screened. However, Grossman cautioned that these studies were based on small numbers and might not reflect real world data. He discussed that cystoscopy remains the standard of care, and that other markers should be studied and validated in high risk populations before being widely used. Given the fact that bladder cancer is an expensive cancer to treat, he did encourage physicians to enroll their patients in screening studies and applauded efforts from groups such as the San Francisco Firefighters Department who are providing screening for bladder cancer.

Reported by UroToday Contributing Editor Ashish M. Kamat MD

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