Expression And Clinical Significance Of Human Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase MRNA In The Serum Of Patients With Colorectal Carcinoma

[BACKGROUND&OBJECTIVE]: To explore the feasibility of detecting hTERT mRNA in the serum of colorectal carcinoma patients using RT-PCR, and to evaluate its clinical usefulness. [METHODS]: We performed RT-PCR to detect the expression of hTERT mRNA in 54 patients with colorectal carcinoma,20 with inflammatory bowel disease(IBD) and 20 healthy individuals without any colorectal diseases and cancinomas,and statistically analyzed the association with clinical parameters which include sex,age,hemoglobin,blood albumin,carcinoembryonic antigen(CEA),and histological differentiation of colorectal carcinoma and pathological stage. [RESULTS]:The expression of hTERT-mRNA in the serum of colorectal carcinoma patients was markedly higher than that in IBD patients and healthy volunteers. There was no significant difference between colorectal carcinoma of different cellular type according to the univariate analysis. The positive rate of Dukes D was different from Dukes A, statistically. There was no statistical difference between other pathological stages. A multivariate analysis showed that positivity of hTERT mRNA was independently associated with CEA, differentiation degree and pathological stages. [CONCLUSION]: These results suggest that this assay is sensitive enough to detect hTERT mRNA in serum, and that it would be applicable for cancer diagnosis, evaluation of therapy regimes and follow-up in the future.