Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology, Ospedale Civile di Vigevano, Corso Milano,Vigevano (Pavia), Italy.
Expert Rev Mol Diagn. 2011 Jun;11(5):473-85. doi: 10.1586/erm.11.33.
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) may be detected in the blood of patients with epithelial tumors using different analytical approaches. The relative number of CTCs is low and they include a heterogeneous population of cells with diverse biological and molecular characteristics, often different from those of the respective primary tumor. Until recently, they have been difficult to detect and, even though discordant results have been reported when different methods of detection were used, they may provide prognostic and predictive information. Several antibody- or molecular-based CTC detection methods have been developed, offering hope for individualized risk assessment by utilizing CTCs as biomarkers of disease progression and drug response. Pilot studies have also shown that by utilizing methods that permit, besides enumeration, a molecular characterization of CTCs, one could better identify high-risk patients, predict response to targeted therapies, analyze gene expression profiles (in order to identify new potential drug targets) and increase our knowledge of the metastatic process. In this article we review the techniques currently utilized for isolation and characterization of CTCs and we discuss their potential utility in clinical oncology focusing on the future perspectives in this field.
循环肿瘤细胞（CTCs）可通过不同的分析方法在患有上皮性肿瘤的患者的血液中检测到。CTCs 的相对数量较低，并且它们包括具有不同生物学和分子特征的异质细胞群体，通常与各自的原发性肿瘤不同。直到最近，它们才难以检测到，尽管当使用不同的检测方法时报告了不一致的结果，但它们可能提供预后和预测信息。已经开发了几种基于抗体或分子的 CTC 检测方法，为利用 CTC 作为疾病进展和药物反应的生物标志物进行个体化风险评估带来了希望。初步研究还表明，通过利用允许除计数之外还可以对 CTCs 进行分子特征分析的方法，人们可以更好地识别高危患者，预测对靶向治疗的反应，分析基因表达谱（以确定新的潜在药物靶点），并增加我们对转移过程的了解。在本文中，我们回顾了目前用于 CTC 分离和鉴定的技术，并讨论了它们在肿瘤学临床中的潜在用途，重点介绍了该领域的未来展望。
