Reduced expression of GATA3 predicts progression in non-muscle invasive urothelial carcinoma of the urinary bladder.

Urothelial carcinoma (UC) of the urinary bladder is the ninth most common cancer worldwide. The majority of these patients present with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). GATA3 has recently emerged as one of the diagnostically helpful immunohistochemical markers for UC. The published literature, however, lacks comprehensive studies on the impact of GATA3 expression on the prognosis of UC patients. This study evaluated and statistically analyzed the immunohistochemical expressions of GATA3 and Ki67 in 50 Egyptian patients with NMIBC and correlated the markers' expressions with clinicopathological variables and patients' outcome. Ten control cases were included. The expressions of GATA3 and Ki67 were significantly downregulated and upregulated respectively in UC cases compared to the control group. GATA3 down-expression was significantly associated with high grade tumors and tumor progression with 72% prediction accuracy. Higher proliferative activity was significantly correlated with high grade, non-papillary growth pattern, and lamina propria invasion. The predictive performance of GATA3 and Ki67 in predicting malignancy and tumor grade was good. We concluded that GATA3 downregulation and increased proliferative activity might be implicated in UC tumorigenesis, loss of differentiation, and aggressiveness. Reduced GATA3 expression could predict progression in NMIBC with an accuracy of 72% and thus it constitutes a potentially promising novel prognostic marker in patients with urothelial carcinoma.