title: Association of urine oncofetal fibronectin levels with urology's most common disorders.
abstract: Urine oncofetal fibronectin (OnfFN) has proven useful in the assessment of malignant diseases such as transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) of the bladder. This study aimed to explore whether OnfFN may identify benign and common urinary diseases.
  
  
  METHODS
  The urine OnfFN concentrations from patients who had bladder TCC (8 patients), benign urinary diseases (10 benign prostatic enlargement [BPE] patients, 10 urolithiasis patients), or controls (10 healthy individuals) were determined by ELISA and compared.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The urine OnfFN concentration was significantly higher in patients with bladder TCC and lithiasis (mean ± SE 0.43 ± 0.18 and 0.45 ± 0.23 ug/mL) than in patients with BPE and in healthy individuals (0.15 ± 0.06 and 0.10 ± 0.02 ug/mL, p<0.05). The urine OnfFN level (cutoff value 0.038 μg/mL), was able to identify 75% of patients with bladder TCC, 60% of patients with BPE and 80% of patients with urolithiasis, achieving a sensitivity of 0.75 for the recognition of either cancer or a urinary disorder. The OnfFN level had a high sensitivity (0.9) for the identification of urolithiasis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The urine OnfFN level proved helpful in the identification of bladder TCC patients. However, it had a better performance for the identification of urolithiasis, highlighting the potential usefulness of OnfFN as a biomarker for urothelial inflammation and repair.
authors.affiliation: MD; Departamento de Urología, Centro Médico Nacional "20 de Noviembre", I.S.S.S.T.E. Avenida Félix Cuevas, número 540, Colonia Del Valle, Delegación Benito Juárez, México, D.F., México. Código Postal 03229; phone: 00(+5255)55583132; fax: 00(+5255)51351347; e mail: alejandroam@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Alejandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alías-Melgar
authors.forename: Ernesto
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Neave-Sánchez
authors.forename: Juan Antonio
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Suárez-Cuenca
authors.forename: Jesús
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Morales-Covarrubias
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers / Q000652:urine*; D002295:Carcinoma, Transitional Cell / Q000652:urine*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005353:Fibronectins / Q000652:urine*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008800:Mexico; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011470:Prostatic Hyperplasia / Q000652:urine*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013053:Spectrophotometry; D001749:Urinary Bladder Neoplasms / Q000652:urine*; D052878:Urolithiasis / Q000652:urine*
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D005353:Fibronectins; C121542:oncofetal fibronectin
keywords: bladder cancer; diagnosis; oncofetal fibronectin; urology; urothelial inflammation; urothelial repair