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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Jun 1.
Published in final edited form as: Cancer Discov. 2016 Mar 30;6(6):584–593. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-16-0062

Table 2. Telomere Testing Considerations.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the different types of telomere length tests?

  • Are telomere length tests validated as a biomarkers of aging in humans?

  • What do we know about the dynamics of telomere length changes in prospective human longitudinal studies?

  • Is the telomere length test accurate within ~5% upon multiple biological replicates from the same individual?

  • Does the test provide both average and percent of the shortest telomeres?

  • What does average telomere length mean biologically?