TY - JOUR
T1 - Careful histological confirmation and microdissection reveal telomerase activity in otherwise telomerase-negative breast cancers
AU - Carey, Lisa A.
AU - Hedican, Catigan A.
AU - Henderson, Gregory S.
AU - Umbricht, Christopher B.
AU - Dome, Jeffrey S.
AU - Varon, Debora
AU - Sukumar, Saraswati
PY - 1998/2
Y1 - 1998/2
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0031887947&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0031887947&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Article
C2 - 9516933
AN - SCOPUS:0031887947
VL - 4
SP - 435
EP - 440
JO - Clinical Cancer Research
JF - Clinical Cancer Research
SN - 1078-0432
IS - 2
ER -