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Comment & Response
December 2017

Telomere Length and Risk of Cancer and Non-neoplastic Diseases: Is Survivin the Ariadne's Thread?

Author Affiliations
  • 1Division of Pediatrics and Neonatology, Moscati Hospital, Aversa, Italy
JAMA Oncol. 2017;3(12):1740-1741. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2017.2313

To the Editor In a recent publication, Haycock et al1 focused on the association between telomere length and risk of cancer and non-neoplastic diseases.1 Findings in this Mendelian randomization study showed that genetically longer telomeres were linked to higher odds ratio for 9 of 22 primary cancers tested but to reduced odds of disease for 6 of 32 primary non-neoplastic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases.1 From their results, the authors concluded that longer telomeres increase risk for several cancers but reduce risk for some non-neoplastic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases.1

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