Evaluation of β-Catenin in Bladder Transitional Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Bladder cancer is the fourth most common cancer occurring in United States, second most prevalent cancer in men and tenth most prevalent cancer in women, with age adjusted incidence rate of 24.5 per 100.000 population and mortality rate of 4.2 per 100.000 population per year (Pashos et al., 2002). Because of its high recurrence rate, the actual prevalence of active bladder cancer is estimated to be about 10 times the number of new cases. (Stein et al., 2001). In Egypt, urinary bladder carcinoma is one of the most common malignancies. Its prevalence is 10.1% according to the last National Cancer institute registry 2003- 2004 (Mokhtar et al., 2007), The wingless-type (Wnt) pathway plays a central role in embryonic development. Aberrant activation of the Wnt pathway contributes to the progression of several major human cancers. Therefore, inhibition of Wnt effects has major therapeutic potential (Tang, 2009). β-Catenin is a protein that in humans is encoded by the CTNNB1 gene which can function as an