Role of FGFR3 mutations in bladder cancer prognosis: Protocol for a systematic review and meta-anlysis

Background: Bladder cancer is a type of cancer that originates from the urothelium. With a global prevalence ranking of 9, it is most commonly found in men. There have been improvements that have allowed for better tumor marker identification, however, because of the complexity of bladder cancer at the molecular level, there are no reliable predictive biomarkers. The FGF3 gene is one of the most commonly mutated genes in bladder cancer and is estimated to be as high as 60% in cases that are non?-muscle invasive and 15% in muscle invasive. The impact of FGFR3 mutations on bladder cancer prognosis is still unknown, leading to some degree of confusion as studies have shown that there is no relationship between these mutations and the survival outcomes of the patients. Objective: This systematic review and meta-analysis seeks to analyze comprehensively the role of FGFR3 mutations with respect to bladder cancer recurrence, Disease Free Survival (DFS) And Overall Survival (OS) and Recurrence-Free Survival (RFS) and Disease-Specific Survival (DSS) and additional outcome of Metastasis-Free Survival (MFS). Methods: The protocol review was prepared according to PRISMA-P 2015. The studies that meet the criteria will be those that relate the FGFR3 mutation to the outcomes of bladder cancer. For all of the analyzed studies, the focus will be on the extraction of the data and the subsequent analysis of the changes in the recurrence and progression rates and the overall survival expectations with the onset of FGFR3 mutations. Ethnics and dissemination: since this is a review of existing research, ethnical approval is not required, the finding of this article will be shared through publication in a peer-reviewed journal. PROSPERO registration number: CRD42024593244