These results support a major role for telomere elongation in HCV-related and non-viral related hepatic carcinogenesis and suggest that TERT promoter mutations could represent a candidate biomarker for the early detection of liver cancer in subjects with HCV infection or with metabolic liver diseases.
In conclusion, we demonstrate a substantial role for the rs2853669 in HCC with TERT promoter mutation, which suggests that the combination of the rs2853669 and the mutation indicate poor prognoses in liver cancer.
TERT promoter is one of most frequent mutational targets in liver cancer, and hepatocellular carcinogenesis is highly associated with the loss of telomere-dependent cellular senescence control.