Relation between telomerase activity and chronic myelocytic leukemia course

AIM: Studying the relation between telomerase activity and chronic myelocytic leukemia(CML) courses by detect telomerase activity(TMA) of mononuclear cells of bone marrow samples in different CML phases. METHOD: Using telomerase PCR-ELISA method. RESULTS: Telomerase activity of normal bone marrow is 9.85±0.68, CML chronic phase is 24.48±12.73 which is significantly higher than that of normal bone marrow(P＜0.05). CML accelerated phase TMA is 76.76±21.84 and blast crisis is 90.62±25.41, both are significantly higher than that of chronic phase(P＜0.001, P＜0.001)but there is no significant difference between accelerated phase and blast crisis(P＞0.05), at remisson TMA is 18.12±6.27 which is still higher than normal group(P＜0.05).CONCLUTIONS: Telomerase activity in different phases of CML is significantly higher than normal bone marrow group. When telomerase is extremely activated , it means that CML patients were entering the accelerated phase. Telomerase activity might be used as an useful new marker in detecting and curing CML.