Clinical utility of telomere length measurements in cancer.
Author: Pepper C1, Norris K2, Fegan C2
Affiliation:
1Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9PX, United Kingdom. Electronic address: c.pepper@bsms.ac.uk.
2Division of Cancer & Genetics, Cardiff University Medical School, Cardiff, CF14 4XN, United Kingdom.
Conference/Journal: Curr Opin Genet Dev.
Date published: 2020 Mar 25
Other:
Volume ID: 60 , Pages: 107-111 , Special Notes: doi: 10.1016/j.gde.2020.02.012. [Epub ahead of print] , Word Count: 122
Cancer remains one of the leading causes of death in the developed world and despite impressive advances in therapeutic modalities, only a small subset of patients are currently cured. The underlying genetic heterogeneity of cancers clearly plays a crucial role in determining both the clinical course of individual pathologies and their responses to standard treatments. Although every tumour is to some extent distinct, there are recurrent features of cancers that can be exploited as therapeutic targets and as prognostic and predictive biomarkers; one such attribute is telomere length. Here we discuss the utility of telomere length evaluation in cancer and describe some of the promise and challenges of bringing this into clinical practice.
Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
PMID: 32220800 DOI: 10.1016/j.gde.2020.02.012
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