RESUMO
Chemotherapy plays a key role in the treatment of many tumors. It is difficult to determine what fraction of tumor cells survives after treatment with chemotherapeutic agents. A convenient and sensitive biochemical assay could be efficacious in determining the potential success of chemotherapy. Since telomerase activity is frequently associated with the malignant phenotype, we sought to determine whether a correlation existed between chemotherapy induced cell killing and telomerase activity. We evaluated telomerase activity in 16 malignancy related ascitic [MRAs] fluid samples [9 ovarian carcinoma and 7 hepatocellular carcinoma] before and after chemotherapy. Telomerase activity was determined using a PCR-based telomeric repeat amplification protocol coupled with ELISA. Telomerase activity was detected in 14 of 16 [87.5%] cases of peritoneal Carcinomatosis. Eight of 9 [88.9%] cases of ovarian carcinoma related ascites and 6 of 7 [85.7%] cases of hepatocellular carcinoma [HCC]-associated ascites showed telomerase activity. In contrast, overall cytological examination was positive in only 10 of 16 [62.5%]; 6 of 9 [66.7%] cases of ovarian carcinoma related ascites and 4 of 7 [57.1%] cases of HCC related ascites, We found that treatment with chemotherapeutic agents result in a decrease in the telomerase activity, which expected to be correlated with cell death. In 2 of 16 cases, telomerase activity is increased which indicates bad prognosis. Therefore, detection of telomerase activity may be a useful monitor of chemotherapeutic efficacy and an early predictor of patient outcome