Lotan - Figure 22
Anticipatory Positives
FIG. 22: There is another scenario where a marker might have use. This is when the question arises of what to do when there is a positive marker and a normal cystoscopy. There are several possibilities.
- One possibility is that the marker is truly positive and the patient has cancer that was missed, for example, patients with carcinoma in situ.
- The second possibility is that it is a false positive and that the marker is wrong and there is no cancer.
- The third possibility is what is termed “anticipatory positive”. This refers to the case where the patient has microscopic disease or a background of abnormal genetic changes that are triggering the marker to be positive, even though no cancer is evident yet.
