Telomerase Activity In Ovarian Tumors

BackgroundThe maintenance of telomerase has been observed in over 80% of cancerous tumors,suggesting that telomerase activity may be necessary for the indefinite proliferation of eukaryotic cells.Numerous investigations have demonstrated the presence of telomerase activity in the vast majority of different cancer types and in immortalized cells,but failed to detect telomerase in most normal tissues. Consequrntly,telomerase reactivation could be prerequisite for the development of malignant tumor cells,and appears to be essential for tumor proliferation.Therefore,its very restricted,tumor-specific expression pattern makes telomerase an attractive research target to study its potential as a marker for cancer diagnosis/prognosis and for the therapeutic intervention in ovarian cancer. ObjectiveTo investigate the relationship between telomerase activity and the development of benign,malignant ovarian tumors to provide theoretical groundwork for early diagnosis of ovarian cancer. MethodsUse the telomere repeat amplification protocol(TRAP) assay to detect the telomerase activity in 34 malignant ovarian tumors 30 benign ovarian tumors and 20 normal tissuses. ResultsThe telomerase activity in malignant ovarian tumors, benign ovarian tumors and normal tissuses were 85.29%,16.67% and 10% respectively. Positive rate of telomerase in malignant ovarian tumors was significantly higher than in benign ovarian tumors and normal ovarian tissues (P<0.001; P<0.001) ,whatsoever in most benign ovarian tumors and normal ovarian tissues, the telomerase activity was negative (P>0.05 ) .No significance between histological type and histological grading telomerase activity level was found (P>0.05;P>0.05) . But telomerase activity levelswere significantly higher in patients with advanced disease (FIGO stage III/IV) than those in patients with early stage disease (FIGO stage I/II, P<0.05),and the expression of telomerase activity in ovarian cancers with pelvic lymph node metastasis was also much higher than those without pelvic lymph node metastasis (P<0.05 ) . ConclusionsThe telomerase activity was significantly different between malignant and benign tumors,malignant tumors and normal tissues.But there is no significantly different between benign tumors and normal tissues.Detection of telomerase in ovarian tumors was helpful to the early diagnosis of benign and malignant ovarian tumors,and understanding malignancy of ovarian cancer.