Recently, two recurrent somatic mutations, chr5:1,295,228 C>T (C228T) and chr5:1,295,250 C>T (C250T), in the promoter region of the telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) gene have been found in various types of cancers including thyroid cancer10, 11, 12, which represent nucleotide changes of –124 C>T and –146 C>T from the ATG translation start site, respectively. The gene discussed is TERT; the disease is cancer.