Sapi Eva, Okpokwasili N I, Rutherford T
Department of Therapeutic Radiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520-8040, USA.
Cancer Detect Prev. 2002;26(2):158-67. doi: 10.1016/s0361-090x(02)00034-x.
The aim of this study is the detection of circulating tumor cells in peripheral blood of ovarian cancer patients. We applied immunomagnetic beads coated with an epithelial or leukocyte-specific antibody to isolate epithelial cells from peripheral blood and we measured their telomerase activity. Both enrichment methods showed high sensitivity and specificity to isolate ovarian tumor cells from peripheral blood. Our data also suggested that disseminated ovarian tumor cells isolated from ascites consistently express telomerase enzyme. We have tested epithelial cell enriched blood samples from 20 stage III patients, 8 stage IV patients and 30 healthy volunteers for telomerase activity. Telomerase activity was detectable in the blood samples of all stage IV patients (100%) and seven stage m patients (35%), but none of the healthy donors. Our results showed that CA-125 level, an established diagnostic marker for ovarian cancer, is significantly higher in telomerase-positive patients than telomerase-negative patients. In summary, our data demonstrated that this non-invasive blood test is sensitive and specific for detecting disseminated ovarian epithelial cells and telomerase is a potential marker for the detection of circulating ovarian tumor cells.
本研究的目的是检测卵巢癌患者外周血中的循环肿瘤细胞。我们应用包被上皮或白细胞特异性抗体的免疫磁珠从外周血中分离上皮细胞，并检测其端粒酶活性。两种富集方法在从外周血中分离卵巢肿瘤细胞方面均显示出高灵敏度和特异性。我们的数据还表明，从腹水中分离出的播散性卵巢肿瘤细胞持续表达端粒酶。我们检测了20例III期患者、8例IV期患者和30名健康志愿者的上皮细胞富集血样的端粒酶活性。在所有IV期患者（100%）和7例III期患者（35%）的血样中可检测到端粒酶活性，但健康供者中均未检测到。我们的结果表明，卵巢癌的既定诊断标志物CA-125水平在端粒酶阳性患者中显著高于端粒酶阴性患者。总之，我们的数据表明，这种非侵入性血液检测对于检测播散性卵巢上皮细胞敏感且特异，端粒酶是检测循环卵巢肿瘤细胞的潜在标志物。
