Clinical significance of circulating tumor cells in blood from patients with gastric cancer

Abstract

Circulating tumor cells (CTC) have been focused on as a target for detecting occult tumors, predicting therapeutic responses and prognoses, and monitoring postoperative recurrence in the clinical management of patients with various malignancies, including gastric cancer. Recent advances in molecular diagnostic tools have contributed to high sensitivity and specificity for the detection of CTC. A conspicuous disparity exists in the incidence of CTC among studies. However, a close relationship has been reported between positivity for CTC and well‐known prognostic clinicopathological factors including depth of tumor invasion, lymph node metastasis, stage, and lymphatic and venous invasion in patients with gastric cancer. According to most studies published on the clinical impact of CTC, the presence of CTC negatively affects the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer. Moreover, the study of CTC based on a meta‐analysis demonstrated their importance as a poor prognostic indicator. In clinical management, pre‐ and post‐therapeutic monitoring of CTC using liquid biopsy may be useful for early detection of subclinical patients or disease recurrence, prediction of tumor progression, and administrative control of adjuvant chemotherapy. Although their functional properties remain unclear, molecular profiling of CTC may contribute to the development of personalized treatment that effectively inhibits tumor progression in patients with advanced gastric cancer. We herein review the clinical significance of CTC as a promising blood marker and therapeutic target in patients with gastric cancer.

Circulating tumor cells with FGFR2 expression might be useful to identify patients with existing FGFR2‐overexpressing tumor

“…Although CK + EpCAM + CTCs were detectable in peripheral blood, CK + EpCAM + CTC was not associated with poor prognosis in this study. It has been reported that CK‐positive or EpCAM‐positive CTCs were not correlated with the prognosis of patients with a solid tumor including GC 34,35 . These findings suggest that CK + EpCAM + CTCs might not have high malignant potential for GC patients.…”

“…12,13 One of the reasons for the negative results of clinical studies of CTCs were not correlated with the prognosis of patients with a solid tumor including GC. 34,35 These findings suggest that CK + EpCAM + CTCs might not have high malignant potential for GC patients. On the other hand, our results indicated that the prognosis of patients with FGFR2 + CTCs was significantly poorer than that of patients without FGFR2 + CTCs.…”

Oligometastatic Gastroesophageal Adenocarcinoma: Molecular Pathophysiology and Current Therapeutic Approach

“…For instance, circulating tumor cells (CTC) have been discussed as a clinical tool to detect early stages, disease recurrence, and tumor progression in gastric cancer. Arigami et al reviewed the current data to CTC for gastric cancer, concluding that there have been contradictory studies so far [112]. However, by making use of new technologies for the isolation and enrichment of tumor cells, it may be possible to improve CTC detection using novel promising markers.…”

Programmed death‐ligand 1 is a promising blood marker for predicting tumor progression and prognosis in patients with gastric cancer

“…However, the clinical significance of PD‐L1 expression in blood specimens of patients with gastric cancer has not yet been assessed. Naturally, non‐invasive liquid biopsy using blood specimens has the clinical attractiveness of being a simple and repeatable sampling tool …”

“…Naturally, non-invasive liquid biopsy using blood specimens has the clinical attractiveness of being a simple and repeatable sampling tool. 13 The aim of this study was to investigate PD-L1 expression in blood specimens and to assess the relationships between PD-L1 expression and clinicopathological features, including prognosis, in patients with gastric cancer.…”