Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase mRNA as a detection marker in the Plasma of Syrian Breast Cancer patients

Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies in the world, high incidence of mortality in low and medium income countries may be caused by a delay in the detection of tumors especially in Syria due to crisis and sever sanctuary. Telomeres are repeated DNA sequences are added onto chromosomal ends by telomerase, an enzyme with a reverse transcriptase activity, it consists mainly of two subunits a telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT), a telomerase RNA component (TERC) The aim of our study was to find out whether there is a detectable levels of hTERT mRNA in plasma of newly diagnosed breast cancer Syrian patients. (64) informed and consented female patients mean age(48.8), newly diagnosed with breast cancer and before any treatment and (18) normal females mean age (47.5) as healthy control were included, hTERT mRNA in plasma samples were assayed using q RT PCR. The presence of plasma hTERT mRNA was detected in 33/64 samples (51.5%), plasma hTERT mRNA was not found in samples from all healthy subjects (100%). We found a statistically significant difference between the breast cancer patients and healthy subjects (p= 0.001) plasma hTERT mRNA was related to tumor size (P =0.0001), tumor grade (P=0.003) and the presence of nodal metastases (P =0.042), but not related to patient age (P =0.99), receptors status:PR (p =0.58), ER (0.99), HER2 (p=0.37), or tumor type (p= 0.61) We concluded that circulating cell-free hTERT mRNA might be potential and beneficial non-invasive tumor marker for breast cancer that must be further analysed and need studies focusing on HTERT protein level and telomerase enzymatic activity.