Diagnostic performance of peripheral leukocyte telomere G-tail length for detecting breast cancer.

The telomere G-tail (G-tail) plays an essential role in maintaining chromosome stability. In this study, we assessed the leukocyte G-tail length of breast cancer (BC) patients and cancer-free individuals and evaluated the association between the G-tail length and the presence of BC. A significant shortening of the median G-tail length was observed in BC patients compared with cancer-free individuals and was found in the early phase of BC. Our study indicated that the leukocyte G-tail length might be a potential biomarker for BC detection.