In previous studies we demonstrated telomerase activity in frozen tissues from BCC and their tumor-free margins by the PCR ELISA. In this study we examined in the same frozen sections immunohistochemical presence of hTERT in the nucleus. After fixation in acetone and methanol followed by steaming we used for visualization the antigen-antibody reactions by APAAP. This was the best method of preparation of the frozen sections in our preliminary hTERT-study with squamous cell carcinomas. This study was supplemented with antibodies against Ki-67, nucleolin, common leucocyte antigen CD45 and mutated p53. The immunoreactive scores were determined and included the comparison with telomerase activity. The investigation of hTERT expression was performed in the tissues of 41 patients with BCC and control tissues of 14 patients without tumor. Eleven commercial antibodies were used for a nuclear staining of hTERT expression. With the anti-hTERT antibodies we looked for both satisfactory distribution and intensity of immunohistochemical labeling in the carcinomas and in the squamous epithelia of the tumor centers, of the tumor-free margins and of the control tissues. The hTERT expression in the BCC was distributed heterogeneously. The score values established by the anti-hTERT antibodies used were variably or significantly increased. In the stroma they tended to be negative, so we disregarded stroma hTERT. Proof of hTERT did not differ uniformly from telomerase activity. We compared the high with the lower median hTERT values in the Kaplan-Meier curve. Patients with lower hTERT scores in the center or tumor margin as shown by some of the antibodies suffered relapse earlier. Finally, we compared the hTERT expression in BCC tissues with the hTERT scores in HNSCC tissues from our previous study. Only one anti-hTERT antibody (our Ab 7) yielded significantly higher scores in BCC than in HNSCC.

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