Cherdyntseva N V, Litviakov N V, Denisov E V, Gervas P A, Cherdyntsev E S
Tomsk Cancer Research Institute, Tomsk National Research Medical Centre of Russian Academy of Science, Tomsk 634050, Russia.
Tomsk State University, Tomsk 634050, Russia.
Exp Oncol. 2017 Mar;39(1):2-11.
Each patient has a unique history of cancer ecosystem development, resulting in intratumor heterogeneity. In order to effectively kill the tumor cells by chemotherapy, dynamic monitoring of driver molecular alterations is necessary to detect the markers for acquired drug resistance and find the new therapeutic targets. To perform the therapeutic monitoring, frequent tumor biopsy is needed, but it is not always possible due to small tumor size or its regression during the therapy or tumor inaccessibility in advanced cancer patients. Liquid biopsy appears to be a promising approach to overcome this problem, providing the testing of circulating tumor cells (CTC) and/or tumor-specific circulating nucleic acids. Their genomic characteristics make it possible to assess the clonal dynamics of tumors, comparing it with the clinical course and identification of driver mutation that confer resistance to therapy. The main attention in this review is paid to CTC. The biological behavior of the tumor is determined by specific cancer-promoting molecular and genetic alterations of tumor cells, and by the peculiarities of their interactions with the microenvironment that can result in the presence of wide spectrum of circulating tumor clones with various properties and potentialities to contribute to tumor progression and response to chemotherapy and prognostic value. Indeed, data on prognostic or predictive value of CTC are rather contradictory, because there is still no standard method of CTC identification, represented by different populations manifesting various biological behavior as well as different potency to metastasis. Circulating clasters of CTC appear to have essentially greater ability to metastasize in comparison with single CTC, as well as strong association with worse prognosis and chemoresistance in breast cancer patients. The Food and Drug Administration (USA) has approved the CTC-based prognostic test for clinical application in patients with advanced breast cancer. Prospective clinical trials have demonstrated that measuring changes in CTC numbers during treatment is useful for monitoring therapy response in breast cancer patients. Molecular and genetic analysis of CTC gives the opportunity to have timely information on emergence of resistant tumor clones and may shed light on the new targets for pathogenetic antitumor therapy.
每位患者都有独特的癌症生态系统发展历程,从而导致肿瘤内的异质性。为了通过化疗有效杀死肿瘤细胞,动态监测驱动分子改变对于检测获得性耐药标志物以及寻找新的治疗靶点是必要的。为了进行治疗监测,需要频繁进行肿瘤活检,但由于肿瘤体积小、治疗期间肿瘤消退或晚期癌症患者的肿瘤难以触及,这并非总是可行的。液体活检似乎是克服这一问题的一种有前景的方法,它可以检测循环肿瘤细胞(CTC)和/或肿瘤特异性循环核酸。它们的基因组特征使得评估肿瘤的克隆动态成为可能,将其与临床病程进行比较,并识别赋予治疗抗性的驱动突变。本综述主要关注循环肿瘤细胞。肿瘤的生物学行为由肿瘤细胞特定的促癌分子和基因改变以及它们与微环境相互作用的特性所决定,这可能导致存在具有各种特性和促进肿瘤进展、化疗反应及预后价值潜力的广泛循环肿瘤克隆。事实上,关于循环肿瘤细胞的预后或预测价值的数据相当矛盾,因为仍然没有标准的循环肿瘤细胞识别方法,不同群体表现出不同的生物学行为以及不同的转移能力。与单个循环肿瘤细胞相比,循环肿瘤细胞簇似乎具有更强的转移能力,并且与乳腺癌患者的预后较差和化疗耐药性密切相关。美国食品药品监督管理局已批准基于循环肿瘤细胞的预后检测用于晚期乳腺癌患者的临床应用。前瞻性临床试验表明,在治疗期间测量循环肿瘤细胞数量的变化有助于监测乳腺癌患者的治疗反应。对循环肿瘤细胞进行分子和基因分析有机会及时了解耐药肿瘤克隆的出现情况,并可能为致病性抗肿瘤治疗的新靶点提供线索。