BACKGROUND: The present study aimed to investigate the clinical relevance of fragile histidine triad protein (FHIT) in patients with bladder cancer (BC).

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Three independent BC microarray studies were collected and reanalyzed. The expression of FHIT was evaluated between BC samples and normal bladder tissues. The correlation between the expression of FHIT and clinicopathological features was analyzed using the chi-square test. Log-rank based survival analysis was conducted to detect the survival significance of FHIT in patients with BC. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was performed to identify the mechanisms.

RESULTS: FHIT was significantly downregulated in BC cells (p=0.0044). BC patients in the FHIT high expression group had better clinical characteristics (including invasiveness, tumor grade, disease progression, and T staging) than those in the FHIT low expression group (p<0.0001, p<0.0001, p=0.031, p<0.0001, and p=0.056, respectively). Patients in the FHIT high expression group had better cancer-specific survival (p<0.0001) and overall survival (p=0.0008) than those in the FHIT low expression. GSEA results indicated that BC samples in the FHIT low expression group were enriched in interferon alpha response, apoptosis, androgen response, interferon gamma response, heme metabolism, and transforming growth facto r(TGF) beta signaling.

CONCLUSIONS: FHIT predicts better clinical relevance for patients with BC, which may be a promising therapeutic target.

Keywords: Urinary Bladder Calculi