Detection of Telomerase by In Situ Hybridization and by the Polymerase Chain Reaction-Based Telomerase Activity Assay

The onset of human cancer typically requires numerous genetic mutations, generally specific for the tissue type from which the cancer originates. Thus, it has been difficult to screen all tumor types for a single mutation. In recent years, telomerase activity has been associated with at least 85% of human malignancies as well as with some lesions considered preneoplastic by traditional cytology (1 ,2 ). Telomerase appears to be ubiquitously associated with a wide array of human cancers from a variety of tissue sources. Therefore, detection of telomerase activity relative to human cancer development is likely to be an important and novel method, in combination with cytology, for cancer diagnosis.