Preface to the focused issue: up-to-date knowledge of basic and translational research on bladder cancer
Bladder cancer is one of the most common cancers of the urinary tract, and it is a highly fatal disease with frequent recurrence and progression. Therefore, there is an urgent need for gaining an understanding of the exact pathophysiology of bladder cancer, as well as for developing new and effective treatment modalities. While many challenging scientific questions are still unanswered, major advances in molecular biology and cancer genetics have greatly increased the knowledge of molecular mechanisms involved in cancer development and progression, leading to significant advances in the treatment of bladder cancer over the last decade.
In this context, this focused issue on bladder cancer includes very attractive topics from a therapeutic point of view, such as target therapy, epigenetic regulators and autophagy, as well as topics from a cancer biology perspective, such as bladder cancer stem cells and tumor microenvironment. Moreover, to address as many research issues as possible and the current knowledge in the field of bladder cancer research, a variety of themes from a translational research perspective, such as bladder cancer genomics, patient-derived bladder cancer xenograft models and novel biomarker studies, are also introduced.
The current focused issue will be a stepping stone for many bladder cancer researchers to properly understand the latest trends in bladder cancer research and to lead to practical application in clinical practice. Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to renowned bladder cancer researchers from all over the world who participated in the development of this focused issue.
Acknowledgments
Funding: None.
Footnote
Provenance and Peer Review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, Translational Cancer Research for the series “Bladder Cancer”. The article did not undergo external peer review.
Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/tcr.2017.06.28). The series “Bladder Cancer” was commissioned by the editorial office without any funding or sponsorship. KS and MK served as the unpaid Guest Editors of the series. JHK served as the unpaid Guest Editor of the series and serves as an unpaid editorial board member of Translational Cancer Research from Nov 2016 to Dec 2018. The authors have no other conflicts of interest to declare.
Ethical Statement: The authors are accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
