Establishment and Application of Prostate Cancer Circulating Tumor Cells in the Era of Precision Medicine

Abstract

Prostate cancer (PC) is the second most common cancer in men and is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Additionally, there is concern for overdiagnosis and overtreatment of PC. Thus, selection of an appropriate candidate for active surveillance as well as more accurate and less invasive tools for monitoring advanced PC is required. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have emerged as a liquid biopsy tool; there have been several reports on its role, technologies, and applications to various cancers, including PC. Liquid biopsy using CTCs has been gaining attention as a minimal invasive tool for investigation of biomarkers and for prognosis and assessment of response to therapies in patients with PC. Because of the lower invasiveness of liquid biopsy using CTCs, it can be performed more frequently; accordingly, personalized disease status can be successively determined at serial time points. CTC analysis enables detection of genomic alterations, which is drug-targetable, and it is a potential tool for monitoring response to therapeutic agents in patients with PC. This review focuses on the characteristics, technologies for analysis, and advantages and disadvantages of CTCs as a liquid biopsy tool and their application in PC. Finally, we propose future directions of CTCs.

Circulating Tumor Cell Counts in Patients With Localized Prostate Cancer Including Those Under Active Surveillance

“…In addition, even in cases with localized T2 stage, the CTC count was positively correlated with the Gleason pattern 5. Advances such as droplet digital polymerase chain reaction or next-generation sequencing will improve the CTC detection rate, and the procedural time and cost (27). Until now, the criteria for active surveillance include PSA and repeated biopsies, but in the near future, new biomarkers including CTCs may be introduced.…”

Molecular Composition of Genomic TMPRSS2-ERG Rearrangements in Prostate Cancer

“…A number of novel noninvasive biomarkers, isolated from blood or urine samples, are currently under investigation for use in personalized risk stratification of patients with prostate cancer. Such markers include adipocytokines like omentin [12], fatty acid binding protein 5 (FABP5), and granulin [13]; miRNAs [14]; circulating tumor cells (CTCs) [15][16][17]; and plasma or urine-derived cell-free RNA and DNA. Although total nucleic acid concentrations in plasma and urine samples are not reliable biomarkers for assessment of tumor burden [18,19], the quantification of tumorspecific mutations or copy number variations appears to be more promising [20][21][22][23][24].…”

Inhibition of prostate cancer DU145 cell growth with small interfering RNA targeting the SATB1 gene

“…Prostate cancer is a common visceral cancer of men worldwide (1). Patients in which the disease is clinically localized at diagnosis typically receive a radical prostatectomy or radiotherapy treatment (2,3).…”