FTIR microspectroscopy of selected rare diverse sub-variants of carcinoma of the urinary bladder

Urothelial carcinomas of the bladder are a heterogeneous group of tumours, although some histological sub-variants are rare and sparsely reported in the literature. Diagnosis of sub-variants from conventional urothelial carcinoma can be challenging, as they may mimic the morphology of other malignancies or benign tumours and therefore their distinction is important. For the first time, the spectral pathology of some of these sub-variants has been documented by infrared microspectroscopy and an attempt made to profile their biochemistry. It is important not only to identify and separate the cancer-associated epithelial tissue spectra from common tissue features such as stroma or blood, but also to detect the signatures of tumour sub-variants. As shown, their spectroscopic signals can change dramatically as a consequence of differentiation. Example cases are discussed and compared with histological evaluations.