Objective:
To investigate the role of detection of telomerase activity of peripheral blood mononuclear cells （PBMC）in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods :Expression of telomerase activity of PMBC was detected in patients with HCC, benign liver neoplasms, chronic liver diseases, healthy volunteers and HCC cancerous tissues using polymerase chain reaction (PCRELISA) . Results :Telomerase activity of PBMC and HCC tissues in HCC patients were 1.29±0.68 and 1.40±0.88 respectively, when the positive cutoff level was set up at 0.7,telomerase activity of cancerous tissues were positive in PBMC in all the HCC patients, the telomerase activity was a significant concordance between PBMC and cancerous tissues (Kappa=1, P<0.001). Telomerase activity of PBMC in patients with benign liver neoplasms, chronic liver diseases, healthy volunteers was 0.65±0.32，0.43±0.23，and 0.38±0.14 respectively, and all were significantly lower than that in patients with HCC （P<0.01, <0.001, <0.001 respectively）. The telomerase activity of PBMC was positive in 18 patients whose AFP > 200ug/L, and in 10 of 12 patients (83.3%) whose AFP < 200ug/L . In patients with HCC, the positive rate of telomerase activity of PBMC was significantly higher than that of serum AFP (P<0.01). Conclusions: The expression of telomerase activity of PBMC can actually reflect the expression of telomeras activety of HCC tissue, so detection of telomerase activity of PBMC is a sensitive and minimally invasive method for the diagnosis of early stage HCC.