The Study on Telomerase Activity in Human Renal Cell Carcinoma

Objective To study the telomerase activity in human renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and to evaluate their correlation. Methods The telomerase activity was examined in a modified telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) in RCC tissues and in the adjacent normal kidney tissue,and assessed for associations with clinical and pathological variables of the disease. Results Mean telomerase activity of RCC was significantly greater than that of normal renal tissue (P0.01); Telomerase activity in RCC was,however, not associated with pathological grade(P 0.05),and not associated with clinical stage(P0.05). Conclusion The positive rate of telomerase activity was significantly higher in RCC tissues.Telomerase might play a crucial role in an initial step of the development of RCC, but was not correlated with the degree of malignancy.The positive rate of telomerase activity might serve as a potential marker for estimating the biologic characteristics of RCC and as a noninvasive biomarker for disease and follow-up.