Abstract
The aim of this work was to study with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) the morphologic patterns of the lesions caused by superficial bladder cell carcinoma and to evaluate the possibility of using this method as prognostic index. Our observations showed three different kinds of morphologic patterns (wrinkled cell, dismorphic cells and cells with microvilli) of the neoplastic urothelium correlated with the evolution of the neoplastic disease. Results show that recurrence and invasiveness are more marked in the dismorphic cell kind, whereas the wrinkled cell kind represent a lower risk. SEM could be used as a parameter for biologically characterising superficial bladder cancer, as it is completely independent of neoplastic grading.
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