Department of Thoracic Surgery II, Beijing Chest Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
Front Biosci (Landmark Ed). 2014 Jun 1;19(6):896-903. doi: 10.2741/4255.
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from peripheral blood have been detected in most epithelial malignancies. CTCs are very heterogeneous and can be captured via different technologies based on their physical and biological properties. The detection rates have varied depending on the technology used for enumeration. Detection, monitoring, and molecular analysis of CTCs provide a powerful and noninvasive approach for the detection of early disease, assessing prognosis and therapeutic response in cancer patients. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is one of the most lethal malignancies in humans. Compared with other solid tumors, the number of CTCs in NSCLC is relatively low. Nevertheless, NSCLC is a particularly important disease for CTC evaluation for prognostic purposes because of the lack of a reliable protein-based tumor marker. Molecular analyses of CTCs have provided new insights into the biology of metastasis with important implications for the clinical management of cancer patients. We review current and emerging technologies for CTC detection, with a focus on enrichment and molecular analysis of CTCs, and their potential clinical applications in NSCLC.
循环肿瘤细胞 (CTCs) 已在大多数上皮恶性肿瘤中从外周血中检测到。CTCs 非常异质，可以根据其物理和生物学特性通过不同的技术进行捕获。检测率因用于计数的技术而异。CTCs 的检测、监测和分子分析为早期疾病的检测、癌症患者的预后评估和治疗反应提供了一种强大的、非侵入性的方法。非小细胞肺癌 (NSCLC) 是人类最致命的恶性肿瘤之一。与其他实体瘤相比，NSCLC 中的 CTC 数量相对较低。然而，由于缺乏可靠的基于蛋白质的肿瘤标志物，NSCLC 是评估 CTC 用于预后目的的一个特别重要的疾病。CTCs 的分子分析为转移生物学提供了新的见解，对癌症患者的临床管理具有重要意义。我们回顾了目前和新兴的 CTC 检测技术，重点是 CTC 的富集和分子分析，以及它们在 NSCLC 中的潜在临床应用。
