Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Apr;74(4):359-64.
doi: 10.1002/pros.22755. Epub 2013 Nov 28.

Telomere length as a risk factor for hereditary prostate cancer

Lauren M Hurwitz  1 , Christopher M Heaphy, Corinne E Joshu, William B Isaacs, Yuko Konishi, Angelo M De Marzo, Sally D Isaacs, Kathy E Wiley, Elizabeth A Platz, Alan K Meeker
Affiliations

Telomere length as a risk factor for hereditary prostate cancer

Lauren M Hurwitz et al. Prostate. 2014 Apr.

Abstract

Background: Telomeres are repetitive nucleotide sequences that stabilize the ends of chromosomes. Critically short telomeres are thought to contribute to cancer development by increasing chromosomal instability. We hypothesized that shorter leukocyte telomere length, a surrogate for inherited prostate cell telomere length, would be associated with increased risk of prostate cancer in hereditary prostate cancer (HPC) families.

Methods: One hundred twelve affected and 63 unaffected men from 28 families were drawn from the Johns Hopkins HPC family database. Relative mean telomere length was measured in isolated peripheral leukocyte DNA by quantitative PCR. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate the association between quartile of age-adjusted telomere length and prostate cancer.

Results: Men in the shortest quartile of telomere length did not have increased odds of prostate cancer compared to men in the other three quartiles (OR = 0.84, 95% CI: 0.32-2.20, P = 0.73). However, when the analysis was restricted to affected men with blood drawn before or within a year of diagnosis (N = 39) and all unaffected men, shorter telomere length was moderately associated with increased odds of prostate cancer (OR = 3.55, 95% CI: 0.82-15.43, P = 0.09).

Conclusions: Though we found no association overall, shorter leukocyte telomere length may be associated with increased odds of prostate cancer when measured in pre-diagnostic samples. Further prospective research is warranted exploring the utility of telomere length as a prostate cancer biomarker.

Keywords: HPC families; prostate cancer risk; telomere biology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

References

    1. Blasco MA. Telomeres and human disease: Ageing, cancer and beyond. Nat Rev Genet. 2005;6(8):611–622. - PubMed
    1. Aviv A, Valdes AM, Spector TD. Human telomere biology: Pitfalls of moving from the laboratory to epidemiology. Int J Epidemiol. 2006;35(6):1424–1429. - PubMed
    1. Meeker AK. Telomeres and telomerase in prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia and prostate cancer biology. Urol Oncol. 2006;24(2):122–130. - PubMed
    1. Willeit P, Willeit J, Mayr A, Weger S, Oberhollenzer F, Brandstatter A, Kronenberg F, Kiechl S. Telomere length and risk of incident cancer and cancer mortality. JAMA. 2010;304(1):69–75. - PubMed
    1. Prescott J, Wentzensen IM, Savage SA, De Vivo I. Epidemiologic evidence for a role of telomere dysfunction in cancer etiology. Mutat Res. 2012;730(1–2):75–84. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types