High expression of karyopherin-α2 defines poor prognosis in non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer and in patients with invasive bladder cancer undergoing radical cystectomy.

Background: Conventional clinicopathologic risk factors have failed to accurately predict the prognosis of patients with bladder cancer (BC).

Objective: To evaluate karyopherin-α2 (KPNA2) expression as a progression marker in patients with non-muscle-invasive BC (NMIBC) treated by conservative methods and as a prognostic marker in patients with invasive BC undergoing radical cystectomy (RC).

Design, Setting, And Participants: Two different tissue microarrays were constructed, one with 234 primary Ta/T1 tumours from patients treated by transurethral resection of the bladder and one with 377 tumours from RC patients.