The use of the BTA Test in the detection of persistent or recurrent transitional-cell cancer of the bladder.

The BTA Test1 is an adjunctive test for the diagnosis and management of bladder cancer. For estimation of its potential in the management of patients with transitional-cell cancer (TCC) a review of published results was undertaken. Three prospective studies were analyzed, in which a total of 699 patients with a history of TCC were enrolled. The BTA Test was performed on voided urine and compared with either voided-urine or bladder-wash cytologic analysis in a blinded fashion. In all three studies the sensitivity of the BTA Test was more than double that of cytology, irrespective of whether the cytologic analysis was performed on voided or bladder-wash samples. The third study also included an additional 225 patients undergoing evaluation for hematuria, and TCC was found in 67 cases. The BTA Test detected 70% of these tumors, whereas cytology detected only 25%. The BTA Test is a simple, rapid test that can diagnose a substantial percentage of patients having new or recurrent bladder TCC. Its complete role in the management of such patients remains to be defined.