Prognostic relevance of hTERT mRNA expression in ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas

Telomerase is thought to play an essential role in tumourigenesis and progression. Its activity is directly correlated with the expression of its catalytic subunit, hTERT. A correlation of transcript expression with a poor prognosis has been detected in different human malignancies. However, data on hTERT in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) are purely descriptive so far. Therefore, we evaluated the impact of hTERT expression on patients' prognosis. hTERT mRNA isolates from fifty-six human microdissected PDAC tissues were analyzed by quantitative RT-PCR and multivariate Cox's regression hazard test. Elevat…