Title:Circulating Tumor Cells: A New Window for Diagnosis and Evaluation of Cancer
Volume: 16
Issue: 12
Author(s): Meihui Liu, Min Tang, Ming Li, Feng Gao, Can Shi, Jing Hou and Wenbin Zeng
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Circulating tumor cells, disseminated tumor cells, enrichment, detection, circulating tumor microemboli, pros and cons,
personalized medicine.
Abstract: As the ever more critical role of individualized therapy in the cancer treatment and
management, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have caught much attention for providing a
promising way in metastases establishment, disease diagnosis and prognosis. Also, their presence
has been generally considered as the rationale behind the application of systemic adjuvant
chemotherapy. Therefore, CTCs open a new window for the clinical utility, especially for the
diagnosis and evaluation of cancer, and move toward personalized medicine. In this review, we
summarize the pros and cons of current available technologies for enrichment and detection of
CTCs comprehensively. In addition, recent advances in the development of microfluidic and
nanotechnology for isolation of CTCs are outlined. Furthermore, circulating tumor microemboli
(CTM)-based and telomerase-based assays, the emerging methods for CTC detection and the
application of CTCs in the clinic, have also been evaluated. Finally, perspectives and challenges
of all these methods in the field of CTCs’ isolation and detection are presented.
