Detection of disseminated tumour cells as a potential surrogate-marker for monitoring palliative chemotherapy in colorectal cancer patients.

In a pilot study the effect of palliative chemotherapy on the detection rates of circulating tumour cells in peripheral venous blood of stage IV colorectal cancer patients was investigated. The results indicate a recruitment of tumour cells during chemotherapy and suggest a poorer survival for tumour cell positive patients. Circulating tumour cells have been shown to be a potential prognostic factor in patients who undergo curative resection for colorectal cancer. The effect of chemotherapy on the detection rates of disseminated tumour cells in blood has not yet been adequately investigated. Objective of this pilot-study was to analyze circulating tumour cells in peripheral venous blood of colorectal cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy in order to evaluate its potential value as a surrogate-marker for predicting clinical outcome after chemotherapy. Our hypothesis was that chemotherapy results in a reduction of the detection rates of circulating tumour cells in colorectal cancer patients. Forty-two Stage IV patients were examined at three different time points before and during palliative chemotherapy for the presence of disseminated tumour cells, using a previously described RT-PCR-assay for cytokeratin 20. 80.1% of the patients showed disseminated tumour cells at least once. Before chemotherapy, patients with multi-organ metastases were positive in 62.5%, patients with locally limited disease in only 14.3%. After the first chemotherapy, the detection rates in the latter group increased to 62.5%, for all patients in the same time from 46.3% to 57.5%. Clinical therapy responders showed an increase in the detection rates from 28.5% before to 71.4% after chemotherapy. In contrast, chemotherapy had no effect on tumour cell detection rates of patients with progressive disease (57% before vs. 60% after therapy). Patients with detected circulating tumour cells showed a shorter overall survival than patients without circulating tumour cells (83 vs. 53 weeks). Clinical therapy responders on average lived only 3 weeks longer than non-responders. In contrast to the original hypothesis, our data suggest a recruiting of circulating tumour cells during chemotherapy in advanced colorectal cancer. Further investigations are needed to clarify the potential role of circulating tumour cells for monitoring chemotherapy in these patients.