Trial reportWorld journal of gastroenterology2004
Advantages of assaying telomerase activity in ascites for diagnosis of digestive tract malignancies.
Trial report in World journal of gastroenterology, 2004. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Is the neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio a useful index in the differential diagnosis of malignancy and tuberculosis-related ascites?Archives of medical science : AMS · 2026Article
- Malignant ascites in pancreatic cancer: Pathophysiology, diagnosis, molecular characterization, and therapeutic strategies.Frontiers in oncology · 2023Review
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimTo evaluate the diagnostic value of assaying telomerase activity in ascites cells for the differential diagnosis of malignant and non-malignant ascites.
methodsAscites from 40 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), 31 with non-HCC gastrointestinal carcinoma (CA), and 24 with liver cirrhosis (LC) were analyzed for telomerase activity. The telomerase activities in cell pellets from ascites were measured according to the Telomeric Repeat Amplification Protocol (TRAP) and quantified with a densitometer.
resultsPositive telomerase activity was detected in 16 of 31 (52%) CA patients, 10 of 40 (25%) HCC patients, and 1 of 24 (4%) LC patients (P<0.001). The telomerase activity was higher in the ascites of CA patients than in the ascites of HCC or LC patients (CA: 22.9 +/- 5.8, HCC: 6.7 +/- 2.5, LC: 1.3 +/- 1.3, P = 0.001). Cytology was positive in 18 CA patients (58%) and 1 HCC patient (2.5%), respectively. The positive telomerase activity was not related to patients' age, gender, and ascitic protein concentration, but to white blood count (r = 0.31, P = 0.002), neutrophil count (r = 0.29, P = 0.005), and the C-reactive protein level (r = 0.29, P = 0.018). When the results of both cytological examination and telomerase assay were considered together, the sensitivity increased to 77% for CA patients, 25% for HCC patients, and 48% for all 71 gastrointestinal cancer patients.
conclusionCombining cytological examination of ascites with telomerase activity assay significantly improves the differential diagnosis between malignant and non-malignant ascites.
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