title: Advances in imaging technologies in the evaluation of high-grade bladder cancer.
abstract: Bladder cancer ranges from a low-grade variant to high-grade disease. Assessment for treatment depends on white light cystoscopy, however because of its limitations there is a need for improved visualization of flat, multifocal, high-grade, and muscle-invasive lesions. Photodynamic diagnosis and narrow-band imaging provide additional contrast enhancement of bladder tumors and have been shown to improve detection rates. Confocal laser endomicroscopy and optical coherence tomography enable real-time, high-resolution, subsurface tissue characterization with spatial resolutions similar to histology. Molecular imaging offers the potential for the combination of optical imaging technologies with cancer-specific molecular agents to improve the specificity of disease detection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Stanford University School of Medicine, 300 Pasteur Drive, Room S-287, Stanford, CA 94305-5118, USA.
authors.forename: Dimitar V
authors.initials: DV
authors.lastname: Zlatev
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Stanford University School of Medicine, 300 Pasteur Drive, Room S-287, Stanford, CA 94305-5118, USA; Department of Urology, Campus Biomedico, Via Alvaro del Portillo 200, Rome 00128, Italy.
authors.forename: Emanuela
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Altobelli
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Stanford University School of Medicine, 300 Pasteur Drive, Room S-287, Stanford, CA 94305-5118, USA; Urology Section, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, 3801 Miranda Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA. Electronic address: jliao@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Joseph C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Liao
mesh_terms: D003558:Cystoscopy; D006801:Humans; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal; D057054:Molecular Imaging; D064847:Multimodal Imaging; D062048:Narrow Band Imaging; D060787:Neoplasm Grading; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence; D001749:Urinary Bladder Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology
keywords: Bladder cancer; Confocal laser endomicroscopy; Fluorescence cystoscopy; Molecular imaging; Narrow band imaging; Optical coherence tomography; Photodynamic diagnosis