Clinical utility of a newly developed microfluidic device for detecting circulating tumor cells in the blood of patients with pancreatico-biliary malignancies

Background The development of an optimal screening method is required to improve the prognosis of pancreatico-biliary (PB) cancers. A recently developed microfluidic device achieved a high diagnostic yield by detecting circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood of cancer patients. We conducted this study to investigate the clinical utility of measuring CTCs in peripheral venous blood to diagnose PB cancer. Methods Sixty-three subjects were enrolled in this study (29 with pancreatic cancer [PC], 19 with biliary cancer [BC] and 16 non-tumor controls). Using a microfluidic chip device and image analyzer, circulating blood cells were selected based on their size and immunocytochemistry staining pattern. The primary endpoint was the diagnostic accuracy of CTCs with regard to distinguishing between PB cancer patients and controls. We divided all cases into the training set (n = 32) and validation set (n = 31). The diagnostic accuracy of CTCs, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and cancer antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) were analyzed. Results In both the training set and validation set, CTCs showed the highest diagnostic accuracy (training set: CTCs 90.6%, CA19-9 90.6%, CEA 65.6%, validation set: CTCs 87.5%, CA19-9 78.1%, CEA 81.2). Regarding non-metastatic PC (cStage I-III, n = 11), CTCs also had the highest diagnostic accuracy among the three markers tested (CTCs: 84.6%, CA19-9:80.7%, CEA 73.0%). Conclusions A newly developed microfluidic device could diagnose PB cancers by detecting CTCs. This trial was registered with the UMIN Clinical Trials Registry, no. UMIN000029808.

Automated summary

A new microfluidic device has been developed to diagnose pancreatico-biliary (PB) cancers by detecting circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in peripheral venous blood. The study showed that CTCs had the highest diagnostic accuracy in distinguishing between PB cancer patients and controls, as well as in non-metastatic pancreatic cancer patients (cStage I-III). This new method may offer a promising approach for improving the prognosis of PB cancers.