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Quantification of telomerase activity in sporadic colorectal carcinoma
Author(s) -
Shoji Yutaka,
Yoshinaga Keigo,
Inoue Atsushi,
Iwasaki Akira,
Sugihara Kenichi
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.052
H-Index - 304
eISSN - 1097-0142
pISSN - 0008-543X
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-0142(20000315)88:6<1304::aid-cncr5>3.0.co;2-8
Subject(s) - medicine , telomerase , colorectal cancer , pathology , metastasis , receiver operating characteristic , carcinoma , cancer , stage (stratigraphy) , biology , gene , biochemistry , paleontology
BACKGROUND Activation of telomerase, a ribonucleoprotein enzyme complex that synthesizes telomere repeats, is associated with acquisition of unlimited cellular proliferation and is commonly detected in human cancer. Measurement of telomerase activity (TA) may provide important information as a diagnostic marker or a prognostic indicator. The authors studied the quantification of TA and assessed its utility as a prognostic marker in sporadic colorectal carcinoma. METHODS Sixty surgical specimens, including 30 specimens of cancer tissue and 30 specimens of corresponding normal colorectal mucosa, were examined. TA was measured by a fluorescence‐based telomeric repeat amplification protocol assay. The authors determined the telomerase index (TI = log (A − B), where A represented TA of cancer tissues and B represented TA of normal mucosa) and examined the relation between TI and clinicopathologic factors using the Student t test, analysis of variance, the Chi‐square test, and the Fisher PLSD as a post hoc test. RESULTS TA of cancer and corresponding normal mucosa was 51.87 ± 27.38 and 7.14 ± 9.85, respectively ( P < 0.0001). The cutoff value was determined to be 26 in a receiver operating characteristic study, with 90% sensitivity, 96.7% specificity, and 96.4% positive predictive value. TI was closely correlated with depth of invasion ( P = 0.0129) but not with age, gender, histologic type, location, lymph node metastasis, lymphatic infiltration, or Dukes stage. There was a significant difference in TI between tumors with and without venous invasion ( P = 0.0003). Four of five tumors with synchronous liver metastasis showed high TI (1.555