*4.2. Patients and Tumor Specimens*

Between 1996 and 2004, 340 patients with UTUC and 295 with UBUC who underwent surgery with curative intent at the Chi Mei Medical Center were enrolled. This study was reviewed and approved by the institutional review board (105-01-005). Informed patient consent was obtained from all participants. Demographic characteristics and clinical information including pathological features, oncological follow-up, and cause of mortality were retrospectively collected. Patients who underwent neoadjuvant chemotherapy or radiotherapy; who had concurrent muscle-invasive bladder tumor, acute blood disorders, or bone marrow diseases; and those with incomplete clinical information were excluded from our study. The tumor stage was defined in accordance with the 2002 American Joint Committee Cancer (AJCC)'s Tumor, Node, Metastasis system. Two pathologists reviewed tumor tissues and reclassified then as low- or high-grade using the seventh edition of the AJCC staging system. As a rule, all patients were treated initially by surgery with curative intent. All UBUC patients with pT3 or pT4 diseases or with nodal involvement received cisplatin-based adjuvant chemotherapy. However, of the 106 UTUC patients with pT3 or pT4 and nodal positive diseases, only 29 received cisplatin-based adjuvant chemotherapy. One expert pathologist (CFL) re-evaluated the hematoxylin and eosin–stained sections of all cases. To determine the *MAP1B* transcript level, a pilot batch of 30 UTUC and 30 UBUC snap-frozen tissues with a high tumor percentage (> 70%) was retrieved. Each group included 10 tumor tissues of the pTa stage, 10 of the pT1 stage, and 10 that were muscle-invasive (pT2–pT4).
