A curved expansion-contraction microfluidic structure for inertial based separation of circulating tumor cells from blood samples

The rare presence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the bloodstream has made their recording and separation one of the major challenges in the recent decade. Inertia-based microfluidic systems have re-ceived more attention in CTCs separation due to their feasibility and low cost. In this research, an inertial microfluidic system is proposed using a curved expansion-contraction array (CEA) microchannel to sepa-rate CTCs from white blood cells (WBCs). First, the optimal flow rate of the proposed microfluidic device was determined to maximize the separation efficiency of the target cells (CTCs) from the non-target ones (WBCs). Then, the efficiency and purity of the straight and curved-CEA microchannels were assessed. The experimental results indiated that the proposed system (curved-CEA microchannel) can offer the highest efficiency (-80.31%) and purity (-91.32%) at the flow rate of-7.5 ml/min, exhibiting & SIM;11.48% increment in the efficiency compared to its straight peer.& COPY; 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This research proposes an inertial microfluidic system using a curved expansion-contraction array (CEA) microchannel to separate circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from white blood cells (WBCs). Experimental results show that the proposed system can achieve the highest separation efficiency (-80.31%) and purity (-91.32%) at a flow rate of -7.5 ml/min, with an approximately 11.48% increase in efficiency compared to a straight channel.