Journal of Advances in Medicine
  • Year: 2017
  • Volume: 6
  • Issue: 1

Expression of telomerase in breast cancer and its correlation with clinicopathological parameters

  • Author:
  • Ram Niwas Meena1, Agni Gautam Shah2, Priya Ranjan Prasad2, S.C.U. Patne3, Sashi Prakash Mishra2, Sandeep Patel4, Rahul Khanna5,
  • Total Page Count: 7
  • Page Number: 27 to 33

1Assistant Professor, Department of General Surgery, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

2MBBS, Junior Resident, Department of General Surgery, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

3Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

4Data Analyst, Center of Excellence, Dept. of Medicine, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

5Professor, Department of General Surgery, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

*Corresponding author: Prof. Rahul Khanna, Department of General Surgery, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221005, UP, India. Email: dr_rahul_khanna@rediffmail.com

Online published on 17 June, 2017.

Abstract

Telomerase is an enzymes which can be expressed in approximately 90% of carcinomas and in over 90% of breast cancer whereas in normal tissues it is not detectable. Recent studies have been proved that high telomerase expression is associated with poor prognosis of breast carcinoma.

We investigated the telomerase activity by immune-histochemistry and its expression in tumor and non-tumor breast tissue and its clinco-pathological correlation with other established prognostic markers.

Immuno-histochemistry (IHC) was used to detect the expression of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) in the tissues of 20 cases of breast carcinoma and 20 cases of benign breast lesions and its correlation with other prognostic factors like ER, PR and her2-neu status.

Nuclear expression of telomerase by IHC was found in 7 out of 20 breast cancer patients (35%). None of the 20 benign breast tissue samples stained for telomerase. The variation of hTERT expression as per T stage, N stage, ER, PR and her2-neu status were not statistically significant in breast cancer. hTERT expression was comparable in patients with triple negative and non triple negative breast cancer.

hTERT expression needs to be correlated with response to chemotherapy by further studies and may emerge as a useful tool in selecting most appropriate chemotherapy protocol for a given patients.

Keywords

Breast cancer, Telomerase, Immunohistochemistry