Isolation of rare circulating tumor cells in cancer patients: technical aspects and clinical implications

摘要: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) may be detected in the blood of patients with epithelial tumors using different analytical approaches. The relative number CTCs is low and they include a heterogeneous population diverse biological molecular characteristics, often from those respective primary tumor. Until recently, have been difficult to detect and, even though discordant results reported when methods detection were used, provide prognostic predictive information. Several antibody- or molecular-based CTC developed, offering hope for individualized risk assessment by utilizing as biomarkers disease progression drug response. Pilot studies also shown that permit, besides enumeration, characterization CTCs, one could better identify high-risk patients, predict response targeted therapies, analyze gene expression profiles (in order ne...