Table 2.
Blood cancer studies examining the effect of cancer treatment on telomere length (N = 11)
| Reference | Cancer type(s) | Study design | Cancer patient sample size | Age range, y | Treatment type | Specimen | Telomere length method | Overall association |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult | ||||||||
| Lobetti-Bodoni et al., 2012 (40) | Chronic myeloid leukemia | Longitudinal, cross-sectional* | 81 | 23–88 | Varied; cytosine-arabinoside, interferon-α, imatinib, dasatinib | PB PMN; monocyte-depleted PBMC | TRF analysis | No association |
| Guidetti et al., 2011 (41) | Non-Hodgkin lymphoma | Longitudinal* | 53 | 26–76 | High-dose radioimmunotherapy based on 90Y-ibritumomab tiuxetan and autograft | Bone marrow mononuclear cells | TRF analysis | Shorter telomere length after treatment |
| Ghaffari et al., 2008 (15) | Acute promyelocytic leukemia | Longitudinal | 40 | 14–50 | Chemo: arsenic trioxide | PBMC | TRF analysis | Longer telomere length after treatment§ |
| M’kacher et al., 2007 (42) | Hodgkin lymphoma | Longitudinal | 119 | 28–76 | Radiation, chemo (not specified) | PBMC | TRF analysis | No association |
| Ricca et al., 2005 (43) | Non-Hodgkin lymphoma | Longitudinal | 37 | 18–59 | Chemo: high-dose Ara-C (after high dose C and APO); autograft, G-CSF | PB progenitor cells | TRF analysis | Shorter telomere length after treatment§ |
| Drummond et al., 2004 (44) | Chronic myeloid leukemia | Longitudinal | 95 | NR† | Imatinib | PB leukocytes | Flow-FISH | Shorter telomere length in nonresponders to imatinib; longer telomere length in responders |
| Szyper-Kravitz et al., 2003 (13) | Lymphoma | Longitudinal | 10 | 45–80 | Chemo: CHOP; G-CSF | PBMC | Flow-FISH | Shorter telomere length after CHOP without G-CSF§; no change or longer in patients treated with CHOP and G-CSF |
| Lee, et al. 2003 (45) | Non-Hodgkin lymphoma | Longitudinal, cross-sectional | 15 | 19–72 | Varied, included CHOP, radiation, ifosfamide, etoposide, carboplatin | PBMC | TRF analysis | Shorter telomere length after treatment§ |
| Brummendorf et al., 2003 (46) | Chronic myeloid leukemia | Longitudinal, cross-sectional | 206 | 16–81 | Imatinib | PB granulocytes | Flow-FISH | Longer telomere length after treatment§ |
| Iwama et al., 1997 (47) | Chronic myeloid leukemia | Longitudinal | 16 | NR‡ | alpha-interferon | Bone marrow mononuclear cells | TRF analysis | No association (5 of 16 had normalization of telomere length after treatment) |
| Pediatric | ||||||||
| Nowak et al., 2006 (48) | Acute lymphocytic leukemia | Longitudinal | 29 | N/A | Chemo (not specified) | PB lymphocytes | TRF analysis | Only range values before treatment and in remission reported |
No pretreatment sample measured for telomere length. APO = doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone; Ara-C = cytarabine; C = cyclophosphamide; CHOP = cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone; FISH = fluorescence in situ hybridization; G-CSF = granulocyte colony-stimulating factor; N/A = not available; NR = not reported; PB = peripheral blood; PBMC = peripheral blood mononuclear cells; PMN = polymorphonucleates; TRF = terminal restriction fragment.
Age range not reported for entire sample; for a subset of the study sample, the age range was 24 to 77 years.
For entire sample of 44 patients reported in the manuscript, the age range was 14 to 72 years; telomere length analyses was limited to a subset of 16 patients.
Result statistically significant.