Bladder test eliminates invasive procedures for recurrence

Bladder cancer is one of the most expensive cancers to treat and have a high recurrence rate. Cepheid has developed its Xpert Bladder Cancer Monitor to accurately provide information on cancer recurrence as a non-invasive and cost conscience option.

Current methods for measuring bladder cancer recurrence involve invasive procedures such as a cystoscopy but the Xpert Bladder Cancer Monitor is able to take a noninvasive urine sample to provide an overall 93 percent negative predictive value. This value is able to give physicians a more accurate measure of managing the risks of their patients and whether they will require further invasive testing. The test also has an overall sensitivity of 75 percent for high-grade tumors and overall specificity of 80.6 percent.

"Xpert Bladder Cancer Monitor delivers accurate results noninvasively in just 90 minutes, which may improve compliance in patients being monitored for bladder cancer recurrence," said David H. Persing, MD, PhD, Cepheid's Chief Medical and Technology Officer. "We believe the test will also likely improve workflow management for urologists and their bladder cancer patients because it provides same day, clinically actionable results that inform important downstream management decisions."

"Bladder cancer continues to have the highest lifetime treatment costs per patient out of all of the cancers and—with a rising population—those costs will continue to add up," said Maximilian Burger of the Department of Urology, University of Regensburg. "Bladder cancer continuously demands treatment decisions that can impact outcomes and quality of life. Guidance tools tailored to patient management fill this unmet need."