A pilot study by University of Kentucky researchers, published in the February issue of the Journal of Urology , demonstrates that the gene expression analysis of urine sediment could provide a noninvasive method of analyzing interstitial cystitis in some patients.

Interstitial cystitis or bladder pain syndrome is a debilitating urinary bladder disease that can occur with or without bladder ulcers – called Hunner lesions. Researching the disease is difficult, due to limited animal models, because human patients are not ethically permitted to undergo invasive research procedures.

The researchers set out to develop a noninvasive method to evaluate the bladder epithelium as objectively and directly as possible by using microarray technology to examine cells shed into the urine. The alternative would be conducting a bladder biopsy, which requires anesthesia and has a small risk of injuring the bladder.

The findings demonstrated that urine cells, from patients with Hunner lesions had a distinct gene signature for inflammation. The findings were comparable to those from an earlier microarray study of bladder biopsies, which was the first to objectively demonstrate this inflammation without biopsy in Hunner lesion patients.

Eric Blalock, associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Biomedical Pharmacology at the UK College of Medicine, says that providing these preliminary results validate future research, they could potentially lead to a noninvasive biomarker for Hunner lesion-interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome.

He states:

“A crucial next step will be to determine the stability of this set of biomarkers across larger samples of the population. And to also see if similar procedures could be used for early diagnosis and intervention in the disease process.”

Gene signatures were similar to healthy controls in interstitial cystitis patients without Hunner lesions.

Urologist Deborah Erickson declared:

“This is important in view of the ongoing debate whether the two types of interstitial cystitis really are different disorders. Prior studies showed the two patient types did have different findings on bladder biopsies. Our findings support the difference, but without the need for biopsy.”

Written by Petra Rattue