Journal
BIOMARKER RESEARCH
Volume 10, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
BMC
DOI: 10.1186/s40364-022-00403-2
Keywords
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs); Liquid biopsy; Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT); Isolation technologies; Precision medicine
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [81972597, 81972453]
- Zheng Shu Medical Elite Scholarship Fund
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are cells that shed from a primary tumor and travel through the bloodstream. Studying CTCs can provide in-depth knowledge about lethal tumor diseases. Researchers are working on capturing and detecting CTCs with improved sensitivity and specificity. However, there are still challenges that limit the current use of this diagnostic approach.
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are cells that shed from a primary tumor and travel through the bloodstream. Studying the functional and molecular characteristics of CTCs may provide in-depth knowledge regarding highly lethal tumor diseases. Researchers are working to design devices and develop analytical methods that can capture and detect CTCs in whole blood from cancer patients with improved sensitivity and specificity. Techniques using whole blood samples utilize physical prosperity, immunoaffinity or a combination of the above methods and positive and negative enrichment during separation. Further analysis of CTCs is helpful in cancer monitoring, efficacy evaluation and designing of targeted cancer treatment methods. Although many advances have been achieved in the detection and molecular characterization of CTCs, several challenges still exist that limit the current use of this burgeoning diagnostic approach. In this review, a brief summary of the biological characterization of CTCs is presented. We focus on the current existing CTC detection methods and the potential clinical implications and challenges of CTCs. We also put forward our own views regarding the future development direction of CTCs.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available