Urinary Levels of 1-Hydroxypyrene Metabolite as Potential Biomarker for Screening High-Risk Men for Bladder Cancer

Background: There is no generally accepted, routine screening for bladder cancer (BC), which is among the ten most common malignancies in men and the most expensive cancer to treat. We examined possibility of using the urinary metabolite concentration 1-Hydroxypyrene (1-OHP) for screening high-risk male individuals for BC. Methods: This was a clinical controlled study. Numerical data were arithmetic mean with standard deviation or median with interquartile range, while categorical data were shown as percentages. Two independent samples were compared by Student t-test or Mann-Whitney U test, depending on the data distribution. Normality was evaluated by Shapiro-Wilk test and box plots. The analysis was performed in the statistical software IBM SPSS ver. 31. Results: This study comprised 117 urinary BC male patients and 110 healthy male controls. The mean urinary values of 1-OHP at first measurement – in patients 205.0 pg/ml (IQR = 116.5-456.5) and in controls 136.5 pg/ml (IQR =76-374.5) with statistically higher values in urinary BC male patients than in controls (p = 0.020). At second measurement – in patients 183.0 pg/ml (IQR = 141.8-407.3) and 137.0 pg/ml (IQR = 73-353.0) with statistically higher values in urinary BC male patients than in controls (p=0.013). Conclusion: 1- OHP values were higher in the BC patients group, but it is not sufficient for urinary screening of high-risk males for BC. We suggest High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Induced Coupled Plasma (ICP) concentration values of urinary biomarkers from other chemical carcinogens incriminated as causes of BC, from Group 1 carcinogens according to the International Agency for Research Cancer (IARC). We reasonably assume that by having urinary biomarker values of chemical carcinogens for BC in men, it would be possible to create an algorithm that could identify men at high risk for developing BC.