Prevalence of urinary tract cancer in the Spanish cohort of the IDENTIFY study

Introduction

Malignant tumors of the urinary tract are associated with high morbidity and mortality, and their prevalence can vary worldwide. Recently, the IDENTIFY study has published results on the prevalence of urinary tract cancer at a global level. This study evaluates the prevalence of cancer within the Spanish cohort of the IDENTIFY study to determine whether the published results can be extrapolated to our population.

Patients and methods

An analysis of the data from the Spanish cohort of patients in the IDENTIFY study was performed. This is a prospective cohort of patients referred to secondary care with suspected cancer, predominantly due to hematuria. Patients were recruited between December 2017 and December 2018.

Results

A total of 706 patients from 9 Spanish centers were analyzed. Of these, 277 (39.2%) were diagnosed with cancer: 259 (36.7%) bladder cancer, 10 (1.4%) upper tract urothelial carcinoma, 9 (1.2%) renal cancer and 5 (0.7%) prostate cancer. Increasing age (OR 1.05 (95% CI 1.03−1.06; P < 0.001)), visible hematuria (VH) OR 2.19 (95% CI 1.13–4.24; P = 0.02)) and smoking (ex-smokers: OR 2.11(95% CI 1.30–3.40; P = 0.002); smokers: OR 2.36 (95% CI 1.40–3.95; P = 0.001)) were associated with higher probability of bladder cancer.

Conclusion

This study highlights the risk of bladder cancer in patients with VH and smoking habits. Bladder cancer presented the highest prevalence; higher than the prevalence reported in previous series and presented in the IDENTIFY study. Future work should evaluate other associated factors that allow us to create cancer prediction models to improve the detection of cancer in our patients.