Strijbos M H
Dept. of Medical Oncology, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium.
Acta Clin Belg. 2011 Sep-Oct;66(5):332-6. doi: 10.2143/ACB.66.5.2062584.
Circulating tumour cells (CTC) and circulating endothelial cells (CEC) are considered promising biomarkers for tumour aggressiveness and vascular damage. Their number in the blood of cancer patients has already demonstrated to be of prognostic and predictive value in several studies. In addition, the molecular characterization of these cells may provide novel insight in the growth and dissemination of cancer, and help the development of new anti-neoplastic drugs. Therefore, many attempts have been made to reliably detect these extremely rare cells in the blood. In this review, we address the detection, applicability and results from clinical trials for both CTC and CEC.
循环肿瘤细胞（CTC）和循环内皮细胞（CEC）被认为是肿瘤侵袭性和血管损伤的有前景的生物标志物。在多项研究中，癌症患者血液中它们的数量已证明具有预后和预测价值。此外，这些细胞的分子特征可能为癌症的生长和扩散提供新的见解，并有助于开发新的抗肿瘤药物。因此，人们已经进行了许多尝试来可靠地检测血液中这些极其罕见的细胞。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了CTC和CEC的检测、适用性以及临床试验结果。
