Association of Leucocyte Telomere Length with Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Risk and Prognosis

Imane El Alami^1,2, Amina Gihbid^1,3, Meryem El Azzouzi⁴, Hicham Charoute¹, Selma Mohamed Brahim¹, Nezha Tawfiq⁵, Nadia Benchakroun⁵, Abdellatif Benider⁵, Abdelouaheb Bennani¹, Mohammed El Mzibri⁴, Khalid Belghmi², Meriem Khyatti¹, Imane Chaoui⁴

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¹ Laboratory of Viral Oncology, Institut Pasteur du Maroc, Casablanca, Morocco

² Laboratory of Immunology and Biodiversity, Faculty of Sciences Ain Chock, Hassan II University, Casablanca, Morocco

³ Laboratory of Pathophysiology, Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology, Faculty of Sciences Ain Chock, Hassan II University, Casablanca, Morocco

⁴ Biology and Medical Research Unit, National Center of Energy, Nuclear Sciences and Techniques Rabat, Morocco

⁵ Mohammed VI Center for Cancer Treatment, Ibn Rochd University Hospital, Casablanca, Morocco

EJMO 2023, 7(2), 135–142; https://doi.org/10.14744/ejmo.2023.19019

Submitted: 26 April 2023 | Accepted: 2 June 2023 | Published: 19 June 2023

© 2023 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )

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Abstract

Objectives: Cancer development and/or progression can be imputed to telomere shortening or lengthening. The current research was planned to assess the relation between leucocyte telomere length (LTL) and nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) development, and to evaluate the association between this biomarker and patients' clinical outcomes, mainly response to chemo-radiotherapy, survival and EBV-DNA load.

Methods: Leucocyte telomere length was measured using a singleplex quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) method in 104 NPC patients and 52 healthy controls. The association between LTL and NPC development was assessed using a Khi-deux test. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated by conditional logistic regression to evaluate the relationship LTL and patient’s characteristics. The correlation between LTL and 4-years patient’s survival outcomes was assessed by Kaplan–Meier and Cox-regression analyses.

Results: Data analysis revealed a significant association between LTL and risk of NPC development (p<0.0001). LTL was also significantly associated with gender (p=0.003), cigarette smoking (p=0.02) and pre-EBV-DNA load (p=0.017) in NPC. However, no significant association was obtained between LTL and age, alcohol consumption, TNM classification, disease stage, response to chemo-radiotherapy and survival outcomes of NPC patients (p>0.05).

Conclusion: The study finding highlighted the close association between LTL and NPC development and showed a significant association with gender, cigarette smoking and pre-EBV-DNA load, suggesting that LTL could be a promising biomarker for better management of NPC in Morocco. Nevertheless, more studies are needed to highlight the value of LTL as a biomarker for the prediction of the response to treatment and prognosis of NPC.

Keywords

Clinical outcomes

leucocyte telomere length

Morocco

nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Conflict of interest

None declared.

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