Osborne M P, Asina S, Wong G Y, Old L J, Cote R J
Department of Surgery, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York 10021.
Cancer Res. 1989 May 1;49(9):2510-3.
We have previously shown that occult micrometastases can be detected in the bone marrow of breast cancer patients using a panel of epithelial specific monoclonal antibodies in an indirect immunofluorescent assay. The sensitivity of this assay has been examined using cells from an established human breast cancer cell line (MCF-7) mixed with normal bone marrow at various dilutions from 400 cancer cells/10(6) marrow cells (400:10(6] to 10:10(6). MCF-7 cells were detected at the lowest concentration studied, namely 10:10(6). The number of fluorescent labeled MCF-7 cells counted at each concentration was related to the concentration by a simple nonlinear statistical model. At the concentration of 10:10(6), the model shows that this technique has the sensitivity to detect between two and four MCF-7 cells 95% of the time. Moreover, by extrapolation, the model predicts that even at the very low concentration of 2:10(6), there is a 95% chance of detecting one cancer cell. Therefore, this assay may be a very sensitive method for detecting cancer cells in the bone marrow in vivo.
我们之前已经表明，在间接免疫荧光分析中，使用一组上皮特异性单克隆抗体可以在乳腺癌患者的骨髓中检测到隐匿性微转移。使用来自已建立的人乳腺癌细胞系（MCF-7）的细胞与正常骨髓以从400个癌细胞/10⁶个骨髓细胞（400:10⁶）到10:10⁶的各种稀释度混合，来检测该分析的灵敏度。在研究的最低浓度即10:10⁶时检测到了MCF-7细胞。在每个浓度下计数的荧光标记MCF-7细胞数量通过一个简单的非线性统计模型与浓度相关。在10:10⁶的浓度下，该模型表明该技术在95%的时间里有检测到2至4个MCF-7细胞的灵敏度。此外，通过外推，该模型预测即使在2:10⁶的极低浓度下，也有95%的机会检测到一个癌细胞。因此，该分析可能是一种在体内检测骨髓中癌细胞的非常灵敏的方法。
