Notably, the surrounding mucosa adjacent to tumours with -124 C>T mutated TERT promoter had the shortest telomeres (p=0.016; Figure 1B), and, in line with our previous studies (26, 27), adjacent mucosa with shorter telomeres (below the median value) showed a high, albeit not significant risk of tumour relapse (Table 2). Here, TERT is linked to neoplasm.