Bladder carcinoma, arising from the urinary bladder, has the highest morbidity. Though it is less severe than liver cancer, pancreatic cancer and lung cancer, its high rate of recurrence and metastasis becomes the most painful thing for doctors and patients, especially when the carcinoma metastasizing, making its treatment and prognosis more difficult. Recently, a team led by Prof. Zheng Junhua from the urology department of Tenth People’s Hospital of Tongji University and Prof. Liu Xiuping from Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University has made a breakthrough researching bladder carcinoma metastasis mechanism. They have found a “special passport” for tumor cells— the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). They have also investigated the role of PPM1A in bladder cancer. They discovered that a loss of PPM1A expression will enhance invasion and the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in bladder cancer. The research was published in the new issue of the international academic journal Oncotarget.

This discovery is of great importance for bladder cancer diagnosis and individualized therapy. In the future, the research team will go further to explore the upstream molecular mechanism adjusting PPM1A and confirming its role in bladder carcinoma, which will provide firm scientific evidence for future clinical application. When relative adjustment mechanism becomes clear, it will be possible to predict and evaluate the risk of carcinoma recurrence and metastasis in the early stage. As for those patients suffering from carcinoma recurrence and metastasis, they can get individualized therapy and intervention as soon as possible.