Tamer Aboushwareb, MD, PhD, presented “From Science to Clinical Utility: The Role of Cxbladder in the Diagnosis and Management of Bladder Cancer” for the Grand Rounds in Urology audience in October 2022.

How to cite: Aboushwareb, Tamer From Science to Clinical Utility: The Role of Cxbladder in the Diagnosis and Management of Bladder Cancer.” October 2022. Accessed Dec 2024. https://grandroundsinurology.com/from-science-to-clinical-utility-the-role-of-cxbladder-in-the-diagnosis-and-management-of-bladder-cancer/

From Science to Clinical Utility: The Role of Cxbladder in the Diagnosis and Management of Bladder Cancer – Summary

In this video, sponsored by Pacific Edge Diagnostics, Tamer Aboushwareb, MD, PhD, Vice President of Medical Affairs for Pacific Edge Diagnostics, discusses the role of the Cxbladder test in improving the diagnosis, treatment, and management of bladder cancer, including lowering costs, improving physician workflow, and helping to avoid invasive cystoscopic procedures. Dr. Aboushwareb discusses the direct cost of bladder cancer screenings annually in the US, which between screening and monitoring has reached $4.9 billion annually despite relatively few diagnoses. He then details the biomarkers involved in the test. Four of the markers (MDK, HOX13, CDC2/CDK1, and IGFBP5) track cell growth, proliferation, and division, while a high expression of the fifth (CXCR2) can detect bladder tissue inflammation. Dr. Aboushwareb then discusses current challenges in bladder cancer diagnosis and management, specifically that there is no single test covering all aspects of the disease, high false negative rates mean many tumors are easy to miss, both blue- and white-light cystoscopy have high rates of false positivity, and many tests lead to atypical results. He then details several studies involving Cxbladder, the first being the DETECT Study, which showed improved sensitivity over cytology and NMP22 assays and another showing high performance of Cxbladder in adjudicating atypical results. Dr. Aboushwareb also presents several other studies, including two others (link 1, link 2) showing how the Cxbladder Monitor with its high sensitivity and negative predictive value can improve the management and monitoring of disease by postponing invasive cystoscopic procedures.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Dr. Aboushwareb served as an assistant professor at the Wake Forest Institute for regenerative medicine and received his PhD in molecular medicine. He became the head of clinical development for Genomic Health Diagnostics in 2017, then moved to be the head of medical affairs at Pacific Edge Diagnostics in 2022.