Scientific paperTelomerase activity as a predictive marker for recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma after hepatectomy
Section snippets
Methods
Thirty-seven consecutive patients who underwent curative resection for HCC from September 1996 to September 1997 were investigated prospectively. Among 37 patients (31 men and 6 women; median age 63 years, range 43 to 79), 11 had chronic hepatitis, 22 had liver cirrhosis, and 4 had liver fibrosis. Anatomical resection included hepatic lobectomy, segmentectomy, and subsegmentectomy; and nonatomical resection was defined as a limited resection of smaller part of the subsegment. After surgery, all
Results
Telomerase activity in HCC was detected in 23 of 37 specimens (62.2%). Telomerase activity levels were not significantly associated with tumor cell differentiation, capsule formation, portal vein invasion, intrahepatic metastasis, TNM clinical stage, tumor size, or serum alpha-fetoprotein level (Table 1).
During a median follow-up of 34 months (range 28 to 44), HCC recurred in 24 of 37 patients (64.9%). The 1-year, 2-year, and 3-year recurrence-free survival rates were 56.8%, 51.4%, and 31.5%,
Comments
Telomerase activity was detected in 23 of 37 HCC specimens (62.2%). Previous series have reported widely disparate telomerase positive rates for HCC, ranging from 61.5% to 100% [7], [9], [11], [16]. In the present study, telomerase activity was observed in all stages of HCC, supporting the hypothesis that telomerase reactivation may be an early event in the malignant progression of HCC [17], whereas it is known to occur at a later stage in other carcinomas [18]. The correlation among telomerase
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