Prognostic Role of N-cadherin Expression in Patients With Invasive Bladder Cancer

We assessed the expression of N-cadherin (a cellecell adhesion molecule) in 433 bladder cancer patients who had undergone radical cystectomy and pelvic lymph node dissection. We found that N-cadherin is expressed in similar to 40% of patients, and it was associated with features of aggressive disease and worse recurrence-free survival. Background: We assessed the role of N-cadherin as a prognostic biomarker in patients with invasive bladder cancer (BCa) who had undergone radical cystectomy (RC). Patients and Methods: The present retrospective single-center study included 433 BCa patients who had undergone RC and bilateral lymph node dissection. Formalin-fixed paraffin tissue microarrays were stained with an antieN-cadherin monoclonal mouse antibody. N-cadherin expression was considered positive if any immunoreactivity was detected. Multivariable Cox regression models were created to evaluate the prognostic effect of N-cadherin on survival. Results: N-cadherin expression was observed in 189 patients (43.7%). It was associated with advanced pathologic stage (P = .001) and lymph node metastasis (P < .001). During a median follow-up period of 10.6 years, N-cadherin expression was associated with worse recurrence-free survival, overall survival, and cancer-specific survival (P < .001, P = .001, and P < .001, respectively). On multivariable analysis adjusted for the effects of standard clinicopathologic features, N-cadherin expression retained its association with worse recurrence-free survival (hazard ratio, 1.41; 95% confidence interval, 1.02-1.92; P = .032) but not cancer-specific survival (P = .07) and overall survival (P = .3). Conclusion: N-cadherin was expressed in approximately 40% of patients with invasive BCa. Its expression was associated with features of biologically and pathologically adverse disease and worse recurrence-free survival. N-cadherin could be a part of a marker panel to help clinical decision-making and therapy for BCa. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.