Telomere length of tumor tissues and survival in patients with early stage non-small cell lung cancer

Abstract

Telomere shortening leads to genomic instability that drives oncogenesis through the activation of telomerase and the generation of other mutations necessary for tumor progression. This study was conducted to determine the impact of telomere shortening on the survival of patients with early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Relative telomere length in tumor tissues was measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction in 164 patients with surgically resected NSCLC. The association between telomere length and overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) was analyzed. When the patients were categorized into quartiles based on telomere length, those patients with the 1st quartile (shortest) of telomere length had a significantly worse OS and DFS compared to patients with the 2nd to the 4th quartiles of telomere length (adjusted hazard ratio for OS = 2.67, 95% confidence interval = 1.50-4.75, P = 0.001; and adjusted hazard ratio for DFS = 1.92, 95% confidence interval = 1.17-3.14, P = 0.01). An association between telomere length and survival outcome was more pronounced in squamous cell carcinomas than adenocarcinomas (P-value of test for homogeneity for OS and DFS = 0.05 and 0.02, respectively). Telomere length of tumor tissues is an independent prognostic factor in patients with surgically resected early stage NSCLC.

The role of TERT-CLPTM1L SNPs, hTERT expression and telomere length in the pathogenesis of oral squamous cell carcinoma

“…telomere shortening as an early event in carcinogenesis (34,37). However, our results are consistent with several previous studies in which longer telomeres have been associated with absence of metastases in OSCC (35), a low grade in intracranial tumors (38), higher overall survival in lung cancer patients (36), and a lower risk of death in patients with prostate tumors (39). Moreover, a lack of correlation between telomere length and clinicopathologic characteristics has also been found in breast (40), colorectal (41), and head and neck (42) tumors.…”

“…Most of those studies have shown that telomeres are shorter in tumors than in normal tissues (33)(34)(35). However, it can be argued that the genomic stability of a tumor is mostly determined by the length of telomeres in the tumor itself, rather than the tumor: normal tissue telomere length ratio (36). Although our results demonstrated no statistically significant correlation with any clinicopathologic features of OSCCs, longer telomeres in tumors could be considered as an early prognostic marker, since they were present in smaller tumors, tumors with lower stages and histological grades, and tumors without metastases.…”

CDC5L Promotes hTERT Expression and Colorectal Tumor Growth

“…Most studies have shown that telomeres have unequal lengths in tumors compared with normal tissues [37]. Telomeres determine the genomic stability of a tumor primarily by shortening the telomere lengths in the tumor itself [38]. Previous studies showed that hTERT was a target gene of colorectal cancer [39].…”

Shorter Leukocyte Telomere Length Is Independently Associated with Poor Survival in Patients with Bladder Cancer

“…Therefore, shorter TL may also be associated with increased risk of death after cancer. Recently, several studies on different types of tumors reported a poor survival in patients with cancer with shorter TL measured in non-small cell lung cancer and leukocytes (10,11). Notably, the study of Weischer and colleagues (11) examining 47,102 cancer individuals followed for 20 years observed that shorter leukocyte TL was associated with reduced survival after cancer, but no risk of early death was reported after stratification for cancer types for 131 urinary tract cancers included in the study.…”