Detection of blood group surface antigens of urinary bladder tumours using monoclonal antibodies with the avidin-biotin complex technique.

We examined 8 normal bladder transitional epithelia and 65 transitional cell carcinomas of the urinary bladder of various stages and grades for the presence of ABO(H) blood group surface isoantigens using the immunoperoxidase staining via the Avidin-Biotin Complex (ABC) methods. It was found that 27% of patients with grade I tumours, 50% with grade II tumours and 82% with grade III tumours had loss of cell surface isoantigens. When correlated with the clinical stage the tumours showed no surface isoantigens in stage D, while 65% of patients with stage A tumours were positive for surface antigens. From among 37 patients (57%), 28 (43%) survived for more than five years. Our results suggest that surface antigens of transitional cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder tended to disappear as the histologic changes of the tumour progressed. It also was noted that a loss of ABH(O) surface isoantigens was a bad prognostic sign.