Telomere function in colorectal cancer

Table 1 Summary of the relationship between telomere length and clinic-pathological parameters in CRC described by different authors

Authors	No. of CRC patients	Telomeres and clinic-pathological parameters
Engelhardt et al[46], 1997	100	Telomeres in early stage Dukes’ A and B tumours were significantly shorter than telomeres in late-stage Dukes’ C and D tumours
Gertler et al[43], 2004	57	Telomeres of UICC stage I tumours were significantly shorter than telomeres of UICC stages II-IV tumours. Telomere length ratio of cancer to no cancer tissue was shown to be an independent prognostic parameter for overall survival. Telomere length ratio > 0.90 implied a 3.3 times higher RR compared with patients who had telomere shortening
Garcia-Aranda et al[44], 2006	91	Telomeres of tumours of the right colon displayed significantly shorter telomeres compared with tumours located in other sites. A significantly poor clinical outcome in the group of patients who had tumours with longer telomeres was observed both in overall survival and disease-free survival. This parameter was found to be a significant prognostic factor independent of tumour stage. RR was 6.48 in patients who had tumours with longer telomeres

CRC: Colorectal cancer.