DIFFERENTIAL EXPRESSION OF FGFRs SIGNALING PATHWAY COMPONENTS IN BLADDER CANCER: A STEP TOWARD PERSONALIZED MEDICINE

Variations Improper activation and inappropriate
expression of fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs)
in cancer suggests that they can act as therapeutic targets.
Fibroblast growth factor receptor inhibitors are currently
employed in clinical trials of different cancers. Regarding
the essence and the importance of the personalized medicine,
mainly mirrored by remarkable inter-individual variations
in different populations, we aimed to perform a pilot
study to address FGFR1 and FGFR3 expression levels and
their correlation with the clinicopathological features in
Iranian patients with bladder cancer (BC). Paired tumor
and adjacent non tumor tissue samples along with their
clinico-pathological parameters were obtained from 50
cases diagnosed with BC in different stages and grades.
The mRNA expressions of FGFR1 and FGFR3 in tissue
samples were determined by real-time polymerase chain
reaction (real-time PCR). The expression levels of FGFR3
were significantly higher in tumor tissues when compared
to adjacent normal tissues (p = 0.007), regardless of the
stages and grades of the tumor. Over expression was associated
with cigarette smoking (p = 0.037) and family
history for cancer (p = 0.004). Decreased expression of
FGFR1 was observed, remarkably evident in high-grade
tumors (p = 0.047), while over expression was detected in
low-grade samples. This pilot study clearly suggests that
in Iranian BC patients FGFR1 and FGFR3 expression patterns
are different, and also highly distinctive with regard
to the tumor’s stage and grade. Such particular expression
patterns may indicate their special values to be employed
for interventional studies aiming targeted therapy. Further
studies with a larger sample size are needed to validate
our results