Mocellin Simone, Keilholz Ulrich, Rossi Carlo Riccardo, Nitti Donato
Department of Oncological and Surgical Sciences, University of Padova, via Giustiniani 2, 35128 Padova, Italy.
Trends Mol Med. 2006 Mar;12(3):130-9. doi: 10.1016/j.molmed.2006.01.006. Epub 2006 Feb 20.
It is well known that malignant cells circulate in the bloodstream of patients with solid tumors. However, the biological significance of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and the clinical relevance of their detection are still debated. Besides technical issues regarding CTC-detection methods, discontinuous shedding of CTCs from established cancer deposits, genomic instability and metastatic inefficiency might underlie the conflicting results currently available. Nevertheless, technological advances and recent clinical findings are prompting researchers to dissect CTC biology further. Here, we review these recent findings, and discuss the prospects for the identification and molecular characterization of the CTC subset that is responsible for metastasis development. This would provide a formidable tool for prognosis evaluation, anticancer-drug development and, ultimately, cancer-therapy personalization.
众所周知，实体瘤患者的血液中存在循环肿瘤细胞。然而，循环肿瘤细胞（CTC）的生物学意义及其检测的临床相关性仍存在争议。除了CTC检测方法的技术问题外，已形成的癌灶中CTC的间歇性脱落、基因组不稳定性和转移效率低下可能是目前结果相互矛盾的原因。尽管如此，技术进步和近期的临床研究结果促使研究人员进一步深入研究CTC生物学。在此，我们综述这些最新研究结果，并讨论鉴定和分子表征负责转移发展的CTC亚群的前景。这将为预后评估、抗癌药物开发以及最终的癌症治疗个性化提供一个强大的工具。
