Is small cell lung cancer the perfect target for anti-telomerase treatment?

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is common in men and women, has a very poor p rognosis, and is therefore a major cause of premature mortality. As such, a ny prospects for improved therapy are of great significance. The promise of telomerase as a therapeutic target is now close to realization with extrem ely encouraging preclinical studies aimed at the RNA component (hTR) of tel omerase, The rational integration of telomerase therapeutics into clinical trials will therefore require tumours to be well characterized for hTR expr ession. Despite the large number of cancer types now characterized for telo merase or telomerase component gene expression, only a handful of SCLC samp les have been analysed. Given the major clinical problem with treating SCLC , we specifically set out to address the issue of hTR expression in neuroen docrine tumours, Our study covers 91 pulmonary neuroendocrine tumours (62 S CLC and 29 carcinoid tumours), We present data to show that upregulation of the RNA component of telomerase occurs in 98% of human SCLCs, Interestingl y, the less aggressive carcinoid tumours of the lung had a significantly lo wer frequency of hTR expression (P < 0.01), Importantly, we compare hTR exp ression in this series to the well characterized biological targets p53 and BCL2, and show hTR to be expressed more frequently. Therapies directed at the RNA component of human telomerase are in active development and these d ata show SCLC to be a prime target for such therapies.