Quantitative and qualitative detection of telomerase activity in cervical cancer

Aim:To investigate the relationship between telomerase activity and clinical pathologic factors of cervical cancer Methods: Telomerase activity in specimens from 36 patients with cervical cancer, 6 patients with chronic cervicitis, 8 adjacent normal tissues and 11 normals was measured quantitatively by the Telomerase-PCR-ELISA and qualitatively by TRAP- silver staining Results:Telomerase activity was detected in 9167%(33/36) cervical cancer and 4%(1/25) controls Mean telomerase activity in cervical cancer and in controls were (1580±0831) and (0038±0023), respectively, suggesting that the levels of telomerase activity in cervical cancer were significantly higher than that in controls(P001) Between patients with lymph node metastases and those without,a statistically quantitative difference in telomerase activity was detected (P005) Additionally, telomerase activity was increasing with the advancing of histologic grade in invasive cervical cancer However, no data revealed that telomerase activity had significant relationship with tumor size and clinical stageConclusion: The activation of telomerase may play an important role during cervical carcinogenesis and progression,and telomerase activity may be related to some clinical factors.