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Updated: Jul 18, 2026
An Orthotopic Bladder Tumor Model and the Evaluation of Intravesical saRNA Treatment
Published on: July 28, 2012
Ki-67 is an independent predictor of bladder cancer outcome in patients treated with radical cystectomy for
Vitaly Margulis1, Shahrokh F Shariat, Raheela Ashfaq
1Department of Urology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas 75390-9110, USA.
Purpose:
To determine the association of the cell proliferative marker Ki-67 with pathologic features and disease prognosis in patients with transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) of the urinary bladder.
Methods:
Immunohistochemical staining for Ki-67 was done on serial cuts from tissue microarrays containing cystectomy specimens from 9 patients without bladder cancer and 226 consecutive patients with bladder TCC. We also assessed malignant lymph nodes from 50 of the 226 cystectomy patients.
Results:
Ki-67 expression was increased in 42.5% cystectomy specimens and in 54% metastatic lymph nodes. In contrast, it was absent in all nine benign cystectomy specimens. Ki-67 overexpression was associated with advanced pathologic stage, higher grade, lymphovascular invasion, and metastases to lymph nodes (P = 0.001, 0.040, 0.031, and 0.036, respectively). In multivariate analyses, pathologic stage and lymph node metastases were independent predictors of disease recurrence and bladder cancer-specific mortality. In the subgroup of patients with organ-confined disease (
Conclusions:
Ki-67 overexpression is associated with features of aggressive bladder TCC and adds independent prognostic information to standard pathologic features for prediction of clinical outcome after radical cystectomy.
