High aurora kinase expression identifies patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer who have poor survival after neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Overexpression of aurora kinase A (AURKA) confers a poor prognosis in patients with urothelial carcinoma of the bladder. The prognostic value of high aurora kinase B (AURKB) expression in local bladder cancer is not well defined, and whether the prognostic value of either AURKA or AURKB is affected by the use of chemotherapy is unknown. We sought to characterize the impact of high AURKA and AURKB expression on clinical outcome in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). Immunohistochemistry for AURKA and AURKB was performed on pretreatment diagnostic transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT) and matched cystectomy specimens in 50 subjects with MIBC who received NAC. Receiver operator characteristic curves (ROC) were calculated to assess the impact of AURKA and AURKB expression on pathologic response rate. Kaplan-Meier techniques and Cox proportional hazards models were used to assess the association with relapse-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS). Twenty-two of 50 [44%] patients had residual muscle-invasive (ypT2-4) urothelial carcinoma after NAC. Neither baseline tumor expression of AURKA (ROC = 0.57, P = 0.46) nor AURKB (ROC = 0.56, P = 0.87) predicted for ypT2-4 status. However, baseline expression of AURKA above the 75th percentile for this cohort was associated with an inferior RFS, (HR = 3.88, P = 0.008) and OS, (HR = 6.10, P < 0.001). Similar trends for worse survival outcomes were also observed for high AURKB levels (RFS, [HR = 2.2, P = 0.13] and OS, (HR = 2.25, P = 0.09). High baseline tumor AURKA and AURKB expression identified MIBC patients with inferior RFS and OS despite the use of NAC and may identify patients who should be prioritized for clinical trial enrollment rather than standard cisplatin-based chemotherapy.

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