RESEARCH COMMUNICATION Clinical Application of the Adenosine Triphosphate-based Response Assay in Intravesical Chemotherapy for Superficial Bladder Cancer

As we all known, the transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder is the most common malignant tumour of urinary system (Riedl et al., 2001; Jichlinski et al., 2003), and its incidence is gradually increasing in the Republic of China. At present, its main therapeutic approach is early operation combined with postoperative chemotherapy of bladder irrigation. However, neither operation nor chemotherapy could solve the problems on high recurrence and progression (Gasión & Cruz, 2006). Related study reported that the recurrence rate of transitional cell carcinoma was 10-67% after transurethral resection (Sylvester et al., 2006). This is because the biological behaviors of bladder cancer are comp1icated and diversify, and the chemotherapy of malignancies always is based on physicians’ empirical judgement. Based on this, the most therapeutic approaches is limited to kill malignant tumour. Therefore, the resistance or sensitivity of chemical treatment is immense importance for prevention of tumor recurrence. As a detection tool, the tumor chemosensitivity assay (TCA) such as Human tumor clonogenic assay (HTCA), Methylthiazoletetrazolium (MTT), Fluorescent Cytoprint