Communication Of Cancer Cells And Lymphatic Vessels In Cancer: Focus On Bladder Cancer

Zhang-Song Wu; Wa Ding; Jiajia Cai; Ghassan Bashir; Yu-Qing Li; Song Wu

doi:10.2147/OTT.S219111

Communication Of Cancer Cells And Lymphatic Vessels In Cancer: Focus On Bladder Cancer

Onco Targets Ther. 2019 Oct 3:12:8161-8177. doi: 10.2147/OTT.S219111. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Zhang-Song Wu^#^{1

2

3}, Wa Ding^#^{1

3}, Jiajia Cai^{3

4}, Ghassan Bashir³, Yu-Qing Li^{2

3}, Song Wu^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Medical College, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518000, People's Republic of China.
² Department of Urological Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518000, People's Republic of China.
³ Shenzhen following Precision Medical Institute, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518000, People's Republic of China.
⁴ Medical College, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan 232001, People's Republic of China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Bladder cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide and causes the highest lifetime treatment costs per patient. Bladder cancer is most likely to metastasize through lymphatic ducts, and once the lymph nodes are involved, the prognosis is poorly and finitely improved by current modalities. The underlying metastatic mechanism for bladder cancer is thus becoming a research focus to date. To identify relevant published data, an online search of the PubMed/Medline archives was performed to locate original articles and review articles regarding lymphangiogenesis and lymphatic metastasis in urinary bladder cancer (UBC), and was limited to articles in English published between 1998 and 2018. A further search of the clinical trials.gov search engine was conducted to identify both trials with results available and those with results not yet available. Herein, we summarized the unique mechanisms and biomarkers involved in the malignant progression of bladder cancer as well as their emerging roles in therapeutics, and that current data suggests that lymphangiogenesis and lymph node invasion are important prognostic factors for UBC. The growing knowledge about their roles in bladder cancers provides the basis for novel therapeutic strategies. In addition, more basic and clinical research needs to be conducted in order to identify further accurate predictive molecules and relevant mechanisms.

Keywords: biomarkers; bladder cancer; lymphangiogenesis; lymphatic metastasis; treatment; tumor progression.

Grants and funding

This work was financially supported by a scholarship from The National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017YTA0105900), The National Natural Science Foundation Fund of China (81672533), and the Shenzhen Basic Research Project (JCYJ20160429172247015; JCYJ20160429093033251).