Circulating tumor cell status monitors the treatment responses in breast cancer patients: a meta-analysis

Whether circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can be used as an indicator of treatment response in breast cancer (BC) needs to be clarified. We addressed this issue by a meta-analysis. PubMed, EMBase and Cochrane library databases were searched in June 2016. Effect measures were estimated as pooled risk ratio (RR), odds ratio (OR) or mean difference by fixed- or random-effect models, according to heterogeneity of included studies. In total, 50 studies with 6712 patients were recruited. Overall analysis showed that there was a significant reduction of CTC-positive rate (RR = 0.68, 95% CI: 0.61-0.76, P < 0.00001) after treatment. Subgroup analyses revealed that neoadjuvant treatment, adjuvant treatment, metastatic treatment or combination therapy could reduce the CTC-positive rate, but surgery could not; moreover, the reduction was only found in HER2+ or HER2- patients but not in the triple-negative ones. Reduction of CTC-positive rate was associated with lower probability of disease progression (OR = 0.54, 95% CI: 0.33-0.89, P = 0.01) and longer overall survival period (mean difference = 11.61 months, 95% CI: 8.63-14.59, P < 0.00001) as well as longer progression-free survival period (mean difference = 5.07 months, 95% CI: 2.70-7.44, P < 0.0001). These results demonstrate that CTC status can serve as an indicator to monitor the effectiveness of treatments and guide subsequent therapies in BC.