Detection of circulating tumor cells in patients with laryngeal cancer using ScreenCell: Comparative pre- and post-operative analysis and association with prognosis

Abstract

The presence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood of patients with metastatic breast, colorectal and prostate cancer have been widely investigated; however, few studies have examined CTCs in patients with laryngeal cancer. The present pilot study aimed to detect pre-and postoperative CTCs in the blood of patients with laryngeal cancer and evaluate the association with prognosis. Eight patients with laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) at stage III were included in the present study and underwent total or subtotal laryngectomy and radical bilateral neck lymph node dissection. Blood samples were collected from all patients before and after surgery at different time-points. The following processing steps were followed; preoperative blood sampling, surgery, postoperative blood sampling at 3, 6 and 12 month follow-ups, and prognostic association analysis. CTCs were retained on ScreenCell filters for cytological characterization. The presence of CTCs was associated with a less favorable prognosis, whereas a decrease of CTCs in the postoperative sampling was observed in patients who exhibited an improved therapeutic response. The results of the present pilot study revealed a possible association between the presence of CTCs and a less favorable prognosis in patients with LSCC; therefore, these preliminary findings may encourage further research into the incorporation of a liquid biopsy in the management of LSCC, as this may help identify patients with occult metastatic disease earlier and in a non-invasive manner. In addition, this approach may represent novel independent prognostic factor for use in the clinical evaluation of patients with LSCC.

A Systematic Review of Circulating Tumor Cells Clinical Application in Prostate Cancer Diagnosis

“…Many original solutions were tested to respond to these limitations; direct capture into the blood stream (Gilupi ® , [ 78 ]), unrestricted automated analysis of all blood nucleated cells (EpicSciences, [ 80 ]) or reverse transcription of mRNA of lysed blood cells (ADnatest [ 16 ]) before multiplex PCR, capture based on the physical properties of cancer cells (EPIC Sciences [ 80 ], HD-CTC assay [ 81 ], ScreenCell [ 82 ], ISET [ 83 ]) including their flow in microfluidic chips [ 84 ]. All methods showed some clinical correlation, attesting to the wide potential for innovation in this field of diagnostic and predictive medicine.…”

Ex Vivo Expanded Circulating Tumor Cells for Clinical Anti-Cancer Drug Prediction in Patients with Head and Neck Cancer

“…To our knowledge, this is the first study to report the establishment of tumor organoids by using CTCs derived from peripheral blood liquid biopsies of HNC patients, as well as the first study to deploy CTC-derived organoids expanded ex vivo to assess drug sensitivity and correlate the results with an actual clinical response in HNC patients. CTCs are considered a key prognostic factor in HNC [ 46 , 47 ], and studies have shown that the detection of CTCs in peripheral blood [ 21 , 26 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ], high CTC counts in peripheral blood [ 26 ], or increasing CTC counts over time [ 18 , 26 , 51 , 53 ] were associated with worse prognosis in patients with HNC. Although the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the CellSearch system for use in clinical settings to detect and enumerate CTCs in peripheral blood [ 46 , 54 ], merely identifying the presence or number of CTCs does not provide sufficient information to guide treatment decisions.…”

Longitudinal Analysis of Circulating Tumor Cells in Colorectal Cancer Patients by a Cytological and Molecular Approach: Feasibility and Clinical Application

“…Staining of these CTC then allows for cytological analysis and enumeration. The feasibility and prognostic value have been demonstrated ( 18 , 41 , 42 ).…”