Biomarkers in Urologic Cancer

This issue of Urologic Clinics is devoted to biomarkers. The writer Sean O’Casey said, “Nothing is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” That can be said of biomarkers today. As scientific research has continued to progress, we now have a better understanding of the molecular basis of the genesis and progression of many malignancies that can be applied to the clinical management of urologic cancers.

A Medline search of “biomarkers” by year demonstrates the inexorable increase of interest in the field. Box 1 displays the number of biomarker citations by year. At the same time that the science has advanced, so too have the economic exigencies of health care delivery intensified. The continued development of biomarkers has the potential to enable us to deliver oncologic care more economically by perhaps decreasing the frequency of imaging and other diagnostic procedures.

Box 1

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