Study of GATA3 Expression in Urothelial Cell Tumors

Abstract

Introduction: Urinary bladder cancer (UBC) is the ninth most common cancer of all cancer cases in men, with the male:female ratio of 8.6:1. Detection of grade as well as muscle invasion is of great consequence as it highly influences the management and overall prognosis. Hence, histopathology plays a crucial part in directing the therapy and gauging the prognosis in patients with urothelial cell tumors.

Objectives: To study the expression of GATA 3 in urothelial cell tumors and its correlation  in histologic variants of urothelial cell tumors .

Methods: Bladder samples provided the data for this investigation. Following standard processing, sections were stained with hematoxylin and eosin for histopathological analysis. Additionally, sections were stained using a commercially available GATA3 monoclonal antibody, to study its expression in urothelial cell tumors. For continuous data, descriptive statistics were derived as mean and standard deviation (SD); for categorical variables, frequencies and percentages were computed. For categorical variables, the Chi-square test was used to assess the relationship between the variables. The means of the quantitative variables were compared between the two groups using the unpaired t test.

Results: Most urothelial cancer patients, i.e., 37.5%, belonged to the age group of 61–70 years. The most common predominant symptom was hematuria (seen in 31 patients, i.e., 77.5%), followed by dysuria (seen in 6 patients, i.e., 15%), and urgency (seen in 3 patients, i.e., 7.5%). The most common site for urothelial cancers, as per the present study, was lateral wall, which grew cancers in 26 patients (65%). High-grade cancers were observed in 18% of patients, and invasive cancers were reported in 30% of patients. The most common pathological feature was nuclear pleomorphism. The proportion of tumors with an invasive nature gradually decreased as the IHC grade increased.

Conclusions: Expression of GATA3 has a strong correlation with the pathological grading of urothelial cancers and hence may be used in diagnosis, assessment of severity and prediction of prognosis.