Department of Oncology, Clinical Sciences, Lund University, SE-221 85 Lund, Sweden.
Hepato-Biliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Skane University Hospital (SUS), Lund, Sweden.
Cancer Lett. 2015 Mar 1;358(1):43-6. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2014.12.024. Epub 2014 Dec 17.
Cytokeratin 20 (CK20) is a well-established marker for colon epithelium. Herein, we suggest that CK20 is a biomarker for detecting circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Blood specimens (7.5 mL) were collected during surgery after liver mobilization from 25 patients with colorectal cancer. The FDA approved CellSearch™ system and two panels of antibodies against cytokeratins, cytokeratin 8, 18 and 19 (CK8/18/19) and CK8/18/19/20, were used for the detection of CTCs. All the patients' samples were processed using the anti-CK8/18/19 panel. The number of detected CTCs was low, 52% of the patients lacked CTCs and 40% had ≤ 2 CTCs/7.5 mL blood. Nine of the patients' blood samples were processed with both antibody panels. The detection rate of CTCs was significantly higher using the anti-CK8/18/19/20 panel compared with the anti-CK8/18/19 panel, p-value 0.0078. Our data show that inclusion of CK20 as a biomarker efficiently improves the detection of CTCs in colorectal cancer patients. The finding in our study is of clinical importance since a new prognostic biomarker would provide an important tool in individual clinical decision-making for colorectal cancer patients.
细胞角蛋白 20（CK20）是结直肠上皮的一种公认标志物。在此，我们提出 CK20 是检测转移性结直肠癌患者循环肿瘤细胞（CTC）的一种生物标志物。在肝脏游离术后，从 25 名结直肠癌患者中采集了 7.5 毫升的血液标本。使用美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）批准的 CellSearch™系统和针对细胞角蛋白的两种抗体试剂盒，即细胞角蛋白 8、18 和 19（CK8/18/19）和 CK8/18/19/20，用于检测 CTC。所有患者样本均使用抗 CK8/18/19 试剂盒进行处理。检测到的 CTC 数量较低，52%的患者缺乏 CTC，40%的患者有≤2 个 CTC/7.5 毫升血液。9 名患者的血液样本同时使用了两种抗体试剂盒。与抗 CK8/18/19 试剂盒相比，使用抗 CK8/18/19/20 试剂盒检测 CTC 的检出率显著提高，p 值为 0.0078。我们的数据表明，将 CK20 作为生物标志物纳入其中，可有效提高结直肠癌患者 CTC 的检出率。本研究的发现具有重要的临床意义，因为新的预后生物标志物将为结直肠癌患者的个体化临床决策提供重要工具。
