Discovery of urine biomarkers for bladder cancer via global metabolomics.

Bladder cancer (BC) is latent in its early stage and lethal in its late stage. Therefore, early diagnosis and intervention are essential for successful BC treatment. Considering the limitations of current diagnostic tools, noninvasive biomarkers that are both highly sensitive and specific are needed to improve the overall survival and quality of life of patients. With the advent of systems biology, "-omics" technologies have been developed over the past few decades. As a promising member, global metabolomics has increasingly been found to have clear potential for biomarker discovery. However, urinary metabolomics studies related to BC have lagged behind those of other urinary cancers, and major findings have not been systematically reported. The objective of this review is to comprehensively list the currently identified potential urinary metabolite biomarkers for BC.