Year: 2004
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Telomerase activation is one of the main pathways to immortalize cancer\ncells. In many kinds of cancer cells, this special reverse\ntranscriptase stabilizes and elongates telomeres and prevents telomere\nerosion that naturally occurs in every cell division. Esophageal cancer\nis the fifth most frequent cause of cancer death worldwide, and is\nhighly associated with alcohol, smoking, cultural habits, and\nenvironmental factors. Telomerase has been suggested as a tumor marker\nand a molecular target for drug design in several kinds of cancers. In\nthis work telomerase activation was inspected among Iranian patients\nwith Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (ESCC), and detected in 90% of\nsamples of different stages. This may be an indication that telomerase\nactivation happens in an initial step in the development of ESCC.\nAlthough there is no correlation between telomerase activity and the\nprogress of ESCC, it could be considered as a good tumor marker in\nESCC. Telomerase activity te! sts are suggested for screening purposes\nin high risk areas for ESCC, which can be easily done on a small amount\nof scrapped samples of esophageal mucosa. It is also possible that ESCC\nresults from incomplete differentiation or a failure in telomerase gene\nswitching off that normally occurs during the differentiation of\nesophageal epithelial cells.
Language: English
Subfield: Cell Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: University of Tehran
OpenAlex ID: W2252731174