LAUSR

Background We assessed the role of N‐cadherin as a prognostic biomarker in patients with invasive bladder cancer (BCa) who had undergone radical cystectomy (RC). Patients and Methods The present retrospective single‐center study included 433 BCa patients who had undergone RC and bilateral lymph node dissection. Formalin‐fixed paraffin tissue microarrays were stained with an anti–N‐cadherin monoclonal mouse antibody. N‐cadherin expression was considered positive if any immunoreactivity was detected. Multivariable Cox regression models were created to evaluate the prognostic effect of N‐cadherin on survival. Results N‐cadherin expression was observed in 189 patients (43.7%). It was associated with advanced pathologic stage (P = .001) and lymph node metastasis (P < .001). During a median follow‐up period of 10.6 years, N‐cadherin expression was associated with worse recurrence‐free survival, overall survival, and cancer‐specific survival (P < .001, P = .001, and P < .001, respectively). On multivariable analysis adjusted for the effects of standard clinicopathologic features, N‐cadherin expression retained its association with worse recurrence‐free survival (hazard ratio, 1.41; 95% confidence interval, 1.02‐1.92; P = .032) but not cancer‐specific survival (P = .07) and overall survival (P = .3). Conclusion N‐cadherin was expressed in approximately 40% of patients with invasive BCa. Its expression was associated with features of biologically and pathologically adverse disease and worse recurrence‐free survival. N‐cadherin could be a part of a marker panel to help clinical decision‐making and therapy for BCa. Micro‐Abstract We assessed the expression of N‐cadherin (a cell–cell adhesion molecule) in 433 bladder cancer patients who had undergone radical cystectomy and pelvic lymph node dissection. We found that N‐cadherin is expressed in ˜40% of patients, and it was associated with features of aggressive disease and worse recurrence‐free survival.