PurposeThe study aimed to monitor circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in early stage lung adenocarcinoma patients.ResultsCTCs were characterized and classified to epithelial (E-) CTCs, mesenchymal (M-) CTCs and epithelial- mesenchymal (E&M-) CTCs, as per epithelial-mesenchymal transition(EMT) biomarkers. CTCs could not be found in healthy controls. However, in cohort A, CTCs were found in 17 (17/18) cases. Detection rate of E-CTCs was lower (5/18) compared with M-CTC (10/18) or E&M-CTC (14/18). Highly abundant M-CTCs were prone to being in the tumors > 2 cm. In cohorts A and B, CTCs count increased significantly in all patients with tumor progression (7/7). Higher CTCs level or change range could be found postoperatively in the patients with tumor progression, as compared with patients with disease free survival (P < 0.01). Additionally, CTCs detected by CanPatrolTM could be validated by CytoploRare or Pep@MNPs.Materials and MethodsWe included four cohorts of patients and 20 healthy controls. In cohort A, CTCs were detected by a newly established approach, i.e., CanPatrolTM, prior to anesthesia and monitored after operation longitudinally. In cohort B, CTCs were not assessed prior to operation, but were longitudinally detected after operation. For validation, we detected FOLR(+)-CTCs by using CytoploRare and EPCAM(+)-CTCs by using Pep@MNPs prior to operation, in cohorts C and D, respectively.ConclusionCTCs can be detected in early stage lung adenocarcinoma, even in adenocarcinoma in situ, and CTCs detection can effectively monitor tumor progression. The distinguishing of biomarkers of highly invasive and aggressive CTCs warrants further robust study.

We consider Gauss-Bonnet (GB) gravity in general dimensions, which is non-minimally coupled to a scalar field. By choosing the scalar potential of the type V (φ) = 2Λ 0 + 1 2 m 2 φ 2 + γ 4 φ 4 , we first obtain large classes of scalar hairy black holes with spherical/hyperbolic/planar topologies that are asymptotic to locally anti-de Sitter (AdS) space-times. We derive the first law of black hole thermodynamics using Wald formalism. In particular, for one class of the solutions, the scalar hair forms a thermodynamic conjugate with the graviton and nontrivially contributes to the thermodynamical first law. We observe that except for one class of the planar black holes, all these solutions are constructed at the critical point of GB gravity where there exists an unique AdS vacua. In fact, Lifshitz vacuum is also allowed at the critical point. We then construct many new classes of neutral and charged Lifshitz black hole solutions for a either minimally or non-minimally coupled scalar and derive the thermodynamical first laws. We also obtain new classes of exact dynamical AdS and Lifshitz solutions which describe radiating white holes. The solutions eventually become an AdS or Lifshitz vacua at late retarded times. However, for one class of the solutions the final state is an AdS space-time with a globally naked singularity.

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