Abstract: Objective To detect telomerase activity in patients with mycosis fungoides(MF)and study the role of telomerase in the tumorigenesis of MF.Methods Polymerase chain reaction-enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(PCR-ELISA)was employed to detect telomerase activity in 35 patients with different stages of mycosis fungoides.Results Telomerase was positively detected in 92.3% patients with tumor stage,78.6% plaque stage and 75.0% patch stage of MF.Telomera se activity was significantly higher in tumor stage than that in plaque and patch stage.No significant differe nce of telomerase activity was found between plaque stage and patch stage.No telomerase activity was detected in control group.Conclusions High level of telomerase activity is observed in MF patients,suggesting that telomerase may play an important role in the tumorigenesis of MF and may serve as a useful marker for the diagnosis of MF.

Key words: Mycosis fungoides, Telomerase