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Review
. 2021 Apr;18(4):185-187.
doi: 10.1038/s41585-020-00419-z.

Urinary biomarkers to mitigate diagnostic delay in bladder cancer during the COVID-19 era

Kenrick Ng  1 , Krishna Vinnakota  2 , Anand Sharma  3 , John Kelly  4 , Prokar Dasgupta  5 , Nikhil Vasdev  6   7
Affiliations
Review

Urinary biomarkers to mitigate diagnostic delay in bladder cancer during the COVID-19 era

Kenrick Ng et al. Nat Rev Urol. 2021 Apr.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a substantial increase in waiting times for cystoscopies, prompting concerns of delayed diagnoses and substandard surveillance of bladder cancer. Expanding the role of urinary biomarkers in diagnostic and surveillance pathways could be a strategy to address this problem, and several novel biomarkers have shown promise for this purpose.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Schematic of proposed surveillance scheme based on EAU guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic within 12 months of transurethral resection.
Hypothetical time points for urine biomarker testing are highlighted, alongside biomarker-stratified cystoscopy or imaging in the context of an abnormal urine biomarker test. EAU, European Association of Urology; NMIBC, non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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