[Significant correlation of telomerase activity in lung adenocarcinomas with cell differentiation and chromosome aberration].

Of a total of 21 surgically resected lung adenocarcinomas (15 men and 6 women with an average age of 59.6 yr) well, moderately and poorly differentiated types were 6, 7 and 8 cases, respectively. Telomerase activity determined by the TRAP assay was classified into four types as follows; negative = Score 0, weakly positive = 1, moderately positive = 2, strongly positive = 3. Chromosome aberrations were also classified into four groups: Score 0, 1, 2, 3 according to the number of marker chromosomes, 0, 1-5 6-15 and over 16 respectively. CT-Indices (chromosome aberration x telomerase activity) of well, moderately, and poorly differentiated types were 1, 4.3, 5.1 respectively. Thus, CT-Indices were correlated with cell differentiation in the lung adenocarcinomas (p < 0.01).