Telomerase as a tool for the differential diagnosis of human hepatocellular carcinoma

✍ Scribed by Kazuhiro Nouso; Yoshiaki Urabe; Toshihiro Higashi; Harushige Nakatsukasa; Naoki Hino; Kouzou Ashida; Nobuyuki Kinugasa; Keigo Yoshida; Shuji Uematsu; Takao Tsuji

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 461 KB
• Volume: 78
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0142(19960715)78:2<232::aid-cncr7>3.0.co;2-n

✦ Synopsis

Background:

Telomerase activation is thought to be essential for the immortality of cancer cells. we measured telomerase activity in human liver samples, including hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc), and evaluated this assay as a tool for the diagnosis of hcc using 21-gauge (21-g)-needle biopsy specimens.

Methods:

Ninety-four liver samples (27 hcc, 27 liver cirrhosis, 37 chronic hepatitis, and 3 normal liver) that were surgically resected or biopsied with a 12-gauge silverman needle and 13 hcc samples that were biopsied with a 21-g needle were analyzed for telomerase activation.

Results:

Eleven of 29 (38%) tumor-bearing liver samples were weakly telomerase-positive, whereas telomerase activity was observed infrequently in nontumor-bearing liver samples (6 of 35; 17%) and in normal liver samples (0 of 3; 0%). the positivity of surgical samples for well differentiated, moderately differentiated, and poorly differentiated hcc was 88% (7 of 8), 87% (13 of 15), and 0% (0 of 2), respectively. in telomerase-positive hcc, 43% (3 of 7) of well differentiated samples were weakly positive, whereas 92% (12 of 13) of moderately differentiated samples were strongly positive. the difference in the tumor sizes and viral marker status did not affect the activity. the telomerase activity of the 21-g-needle biopsied specimens showed no significant difference from that of the surgical samples. the positive incidence of 21-g specimens was 80% (8 of 10) and 100% (2 of 2) in well differentiated hcc and moderately differentiated hcc, respectively.

Conclusions:

An incremental positivity of telomerase was observed during hepatocarcinogenesis. the use of this assay in 21-g-needle biopsy specimens may be useful in clinical examination.