title: Careful histological confirmation and microdissection reveal telomerase activity in otherwise telomerase-negative breast cancers.
abstract: Studies of invasive breast cancers consistently identify a subset of tumors without telomerase activity, compromising its utility as a tumor marker. Telomerase-negative tumors may represent a biologically different subset, or the result could be attributed to assay imperfections. To resolve this issue, we tested 105 invasive breast cancers for telomerase activity and found that 23 (22%) tumors were telomerase negative. Careful histological confirmation of an adjacent cryosection and/or microdissection of pure tumor cells reduced this number to 5 (5%). Thus, truly telomerase-negative invasive breast cancers are rare, making this enzyme a potentially very useful tumor marker in breast cancer.
authors.affiliation: Breast Cancer Research Program, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA.
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Carey
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Hedican
authors.forename: G S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Henderson
authors.forename: C B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Umbricht
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Dome
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Varon
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sukumar
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000473:pathology; D004210:Dissection; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D019098:Telomerase / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D019098:Telomerase