Purpose: Cytokeratin 20 (CK 20) is selectively expressed in urothelium, gastric intestinal epithelium, in Merkel cells and in a variety of malignant neoplasms. CK 20 RT-PCR assay has been extensively used to detect isolated cancer cells in peripheral blood, lymph nodes and bone marrow samples of patients with colorectal carcinoma. Since CK-20 is also actively expressed in transitional cell carcinoma (TCC), we analyzed, whether CK 20 Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) is suitable to detect residual tumor cells in patients with transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder and the upper urinary tract.
Materials and methods: Nested Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction assay was used to analyze CK 20 transcripts in peripheral venous blood samples and tumor biopsies of 49 patients with transitional cell carcinoma. Blood samples of 22 healthy volunteers served as negative controls.
Results: CK 20 mRNA was detectable in blood samples of 12 of 49 patients with TCC. All blood samples of the control group tested negative. The detection rate for CK 20 mRNA significantly correlated (p = 0.0019, Cochran-Armitage Trend Test) to the stage of disease and increased from 0% in stage pTa to 63% in stage pT4.
Conclusions: These results suggest that CK 20 is a suitable marker for the detection of disseminated TCC cells in peripheral venous blood samples and may be helpful in the molecular staging of TCC patients. The prognostic relevance has to be evaluated in further followup.