Liquid biopsies in bladder cancer—did we find the Holy Grail for biomarker analyses?

The natural history of urothelial carcinoma of the bladder (UCB) and its treatment strategies are highly variable. While some patients never experience disease recurrence, others experience disease progression and eventually decease of their disease. Indeed, UCB is not only clinically, but also genetically a highly heterogeneous disease. Phenotypically similar tumors may harbor completely different molecular genotypes representing the individuality of each tumor and its host. Biomolecular predictors hold the potential to unmask individual genomic, epigenetic, transcriptomic, and proteomic alterations that may explain the variable clinical course of disease (1).