Marrinucci Dena, Bethel Kelly, Luttgen Madelyn, Bruce Richard H, Nieva Jorge, Kuhn Peter
Department of Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2009 Sep;133(9):1468-71. doi: 10.5858/133.9.1468.
The detailed cytomorphologic appearance of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in cancer patients is not well described, despite publication of multiple methods for enumerating these cells. In this case study, we present the cytomorphology of CTCs obtained from the blood of a woman with stage IIIB well-differentiated lung adenocarcinoma. Four years after she was diagnosed with her disease, 67 CTCs were identified in a blood sample using an immunofluorescent staining protocol and then subsequently stained with Wright-Giemsa. The cytomorphology of the CTCs was compared with the original tissue biopsy from 4 years prior. We found that CTCs and cells from the original biopsy had strikingly similar morphologic features, including large size in comparison to white blood cells and low nuclear to cytoplasmic ratios with voluminous cytoplasm. Careful cytomorphologic evaluation of CTCs will provide insights about the metastatic significance of these cells, which could yield widespread implications for the diagnosis, treatment, and management of cancer.
尽管已经发表了多种用于计数循环肿瘤细胞（CTC）的方法，但癌症患者中循环肿瘤细胞的详细细胞形态学特征尚未得到充分描述。在本病例研究中，我们展示了从一名患有IIIB期高分化肺腺癌的女性血液中获取的循环肿瘤细胞的细胞形态学。在她被诊断出患有该疾病四年后，使用免疫荧光染色方案在一份血液样本中鉴定出67个循环肿瘤细胞，随后用瑞氏-吉姆萨染色。将循环肿瘤细胞的细胞形态学与四年前的原始组织活检进行了比较。我们发现循环肿瘤细胞与原始活检中的细胞具有惊人相似的形态学特征，包括与白细胞相比体积较大，核质比低且细胞质丰富。对循环肿瘤细胞进行仔细的细胞形态学评估将为这些细胞的转移意义提供见解，这可能对癌症的诊断、治疗和管理产生广泛影响。
