TELOMERASE - A POTENTIAL MARKER OF BLADDER TRANSITIONAL-CELL CARCINOMA IN BLADDER WASHES

Telomerase is an enzyme that immortalizes cells by maintaining a const ant telomere length, Here, telomerase activity in bladder washes was a nalyzed and compared with the final pathological diagnosis in 23 patie nts with bladder transitional cell carcinoma (TCC), Bladder washes and normal tissues were obtained from each patient prior to transurethral resection of bladder tumor, Telomerase activity was detected using te lomeric repeat amplification protocol assay based on PCR, Cytological diagnosis of centrifuged cells from bladder washes was made using Papa nicolau's stain, Results demonstrated that telomerase activity was det ected in 95.7% of both cancer tissues and bladder washes, In normal ti ssues, telomerase activity was not detected in 22 of 23 samples, Regar ding cytological diagnosis, only 69.6% of bladder wash samples had pos itive cytology, Moreover, in five cases of grade 1 TCC, only 20% of th e cytological specimens were positive for malignancy, whereas 80% show ed positive telomerase activity, These results demonstrate that telome rase activity is detectable in a majority of human bladder cancer tiss ues and bladder washes obtained from patients with TCC, In addition, r esults of this study suggest that the presence of telomerase in bladde r washes may be a specific marker of bladder cancer, especially in low -grade tumors.