Comparison of two methods for enumerating circulating tumor cells in carcinoma patients

Abstract

Background: Monitoring of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in blood of carcinoma patients treated with novel compounds may be a measurement of treatment effectiveness. Before it can be used clinically, a reliably method is needed to enumerate CTCs. We compared two methods for CTC enumeration, OnkoQuick and the CellSearch system. Methods: We drew 22.5 ml of blood into three CellSave tubes from 15 healthy donors and 61 patients with metastatic carcinoma. After pooling, 15 ml was processed with OncoQuick and 7.5 ml with CellSearch.Results: With both methods no CTCs were found in healthy donors. At least one CTC was detected in 14 of 61 patients (23%) with OncoQuick and 33 of 61 patients (54%) with CellSearch (P < 0.0001). The number of CTCs detected was larger for CellSearch (mean 20 CTCs/7.5 ml of blood) than for OncoQuick (3 CTCs/7.5 ml; P < 0.0001).Conclusion: The CellSearch system is a more accurate and sensitive method to enumerate CTCs. Further studies are warranted to evaluate CTC enumeration by the CellSearch system as a monitoring tool for the evaluation of the efficacy of novel anticancer agents. q 2005 International Society for Analytical Cytology

Correlation of HER2 status between primary tumors and corresponding circulating tumor cells in advanced breast cancer patients

“…In addition, in these studies, biomarkers expression was most frequently evaluated on a single metastatic site, assuming that this site would be representative of the bulk of metastatic disease. The use of modern technologies allowing for the isolation of CTCs from the peripheral blood of cancer patients has enabled the undertaking of studies aiming to biologically characterize metastatic tumors [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. Theoretically, CTCs isolation and biocharacterization may become a real time and minimally invasive biopsy of the metastatic tumor and could provide the clinician with relevant information in terms of prognosis and prediction of treatment activity.…”

Circulating tumor cell technologies

“…Inexpensive, easy-to-use (Weitz et al, 1998) OncoQuick Density, Size Porous membrane above separation media for additional separation by filtration (Balic et al, 2005;Clawson et al, 2012;Lagoudianakis et al, 2009;M€ uller et al, 2005;Obermayr et al, 2010;Rosenberg et al, 2002) (Campton et al, 2015) Biophysical e Microfiltration in Two and Three Dimensions Size-based cell separation using pores or three-dimensional geometries.…”

Circulating tumour cell detection: a direct comparison between the CellSearch System, the AdnaTest and CK-19/mammaglobin RT–PCR in patients with metastatic breast cancer

“…Over the past few years, different approaches for the detection, enumeration and isolation of CTCs in blood have been developed. Immunocytochemical analysis is usually used in combination with density-gradient centrifugation (Balic et al, 2005;Muller et al, 2005;Wiedswang et al, 2006), size filtration (Kahn et al, 2004;Wong et al, 2006) or flow cytometry (Meng et al, 2004;Allan et al, 2005) to enrich tumour cells before their detection. In addition, nucleic-acid-based approaches for cell detection have been described (Lambrechts et al, 1999;Smith et al, 2000;Aerts et al, 2001;Stathopoulou et al, 2002;Benoy et al, 2004).…”