A Prospective, Multicenter Cohort Study of Urinary Exosome lncRNAs for Preoperative Diagnosis of Lymphatic Metastasis in Patients With Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer is one of the most frequent malignant tumors of the urinary system in China, seriously threatening the life safety of patients. The main treatment methods for bladder cancer include surgical resection, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy, among which surgical resection is still the only reliable radical treatment at present. Lymphatic metastasis is the main mode of metastasis of bladder cancer, and preoperative diagnosis is of great significance to determine whether radical surgical treatment can be performed for some patients with advanced bladder cancer. Recent studies reveal that exosomes, as key signaling molecules in the tumor microenvironment, have been confirmed to be associated with various tumor progressions. Our previous study showed that lncRNA-ELNAT1 highly expressed in urine exosomes of bladder cancer patients can promote lymphatic metastasis of bladder cancer by inducing lymphatic angiogenesis, and is associated with poor prognosis of patients. However, whether exosome ELNAT1 can be used as an independent preoperative predictor of lymph node metastasis of bladder cancer needs to be explored in further clinical trials, and this study will further clarify the association between the two. In this study, urine exosomes were collected from positive and negative control patients with lymph node metastasis of bladder cancer, and the ROC curve was statistically analyzed and fitted to determine whether exosome ELANT1 could be used as an independent predictor of lymph node metastasis of bladder cancer.