TY - JOUR T1 - Telomere Length and Risk of Hepatocellular Carcinoma: A Nested Case–control Study in Taiwan Cancer Screening Program Cohort JF - Anticancer Research JO - Anticancer Res SP - 637 LP - 644 VL - 37 IS - 2 AU - HUI ZENG AU - HUI-CHEN WU AU - QIAO WANG AU - HWAI-I YANG AU - CHIEN-JEN CHEN AU - REGINA M. SANTELLA AU - JING SHEN Y1 - 2017/02/01 UR - http://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/37/2/637.abstract N2 - Background: Telomere length (TL) measured in peripheral blood leucocytes (PBL) might be a useful biomarker to identify elevated cancer risk. Patients and Methods: A case-control study which included 268 newly-diagnosed HCC cases and 536 matched controls, was conducted. Absolute TL in PBL was analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR. Results: The overall median length of TL was not statistically shorter in HCC cases compared to healthy controls. However, we found a significant synergistic effect of longer TL and HCV infection to increase HCC risk with a relative excess risk of 6.86 (95% CI: 2.14-11.58). Among HCC cases, significant shorter TLs were observed for <5 years (OR=3.93, 95% CI: 2.00-7.72); 5-10 years (OR=2.16, 95% CI: 1.10-4.24) compared to >10 years prior to diagnosis. Conclusion: Shorter PBL TL alone was not significantly associated with increased HCC risk. Among HCC cases, significant shorter TLs were observed for <5 years prior to diagnosis. ER -