Objective: The purpose was to investigate the clinical significance of telomerase activity for tumor diagnosis in ascites cells from patients with ovarian carcinoma.
Methods: Thirty ascites specimens from patients with ovarian tumor were examined for telomerase activity by PCR-based TRAP (telomeric repeat amplification protocol) method, and the result of detection was compared with the cytological diagnosis.
Results: Telomerase activity was detected in ascites cells from patients with ovarian tumor in 19 of the 20 cytologic-possitive specimens and in 3 of the 7 cytologic-negative specimens and in all the 3 cytologic-suspicious specimens. The positive rate in 30 ascites samples by cytological examination and by the detection of telomerase activity was 66.67% (20/30), and 83.33% (25/30), respectively.
Conclusions: The result suggested that measuring telomerase activity in ascites cells would be helpful to cytological examination in diagnosis of patients with ovarian carcinoma.