Issue 1, 2014

Technologies for detection of circulating tumor cells: facts and vision

Abstract

Hematogeneous tumor cell dissemination is a key step in cancer progression. The detection of CTCs in the peripheral blood of patients with solid epithelial tumors (e.g., breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer) holds great promise, and many exciting technologies have been developed over the past years. However, the detection and molecular characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) remain technically challenging. The identification and characterization of CTCs require extremely sensitive and specific analytical methods, which are usually a combination of complex enrichment and detection procedures. CTCs occur at very low concentrations of one tumor cell in the background of millions of normal blood cells and the epithelial–mesenchymal plasticity of CTCs can hamper their detection by the epithelial markers used in current CTC assays. In the present review, we summarize current methods for the enrichment and detection of CTCs and discuss the key challenges and perspectives of CTC analyses within the context of improved clinical management of cancer patients.

Graphical abstract: Technologies for detection of circulating tumor cells: facts and vision

Article information

Article type
Critical Review
Submitted
28 May 2013
Accepted
23 Sep 2013
First published
23 Sep 2013

Lab Chip, 2014,14, 57-62

Technologies for detection of circulating tumor cells: facts and vision

C. Alix-Panabières and K. Pantel, Lab Chip, 2014, 14, 57 DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50644D

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