Laboratory of Rare Human Circulating Cells (LCCRH), University Medical Centre of Montpellier, UPRES EA2415, 34093 Montpellier, France.
Department of Dermatology, Nîmes University Hospital, University of Montpellier, 30029 Nîmes, France.
Cells. 2019 Jul 20;8(7):755. doi: 10.3390/cells8070755.
Metastatic melanoma is one of the most aggressive and drug-resistant cancers with very poor overall survival. Circulating melanoma cells (CMCs) were first described in 1991. However, there is no general consensus on the clinical utility of CMC detection, largely due to conflicting results linked to the use of heterogeneous patient populations and different detection methods. Here, we developed a new EPithelial ImmunoSPOT (EPISPOT) assay to detect viable CMCs based on their secretion of the S100 protein (S100-EPISPOT). Then, we compared the results obtained with the S100-EPISPOT assay and the CellSearch CMC kit using blood samples from a homogeneous population of patients with metastatic melanoma. We found that S100-EPISPOT sensitivity was significantly higher than that of CellSearch. Specifically, the percentage of patients with ≥2 CMCs was significantly higher using S100-EPISPOT than CellSearch (48% and 21%, respectively; = 0.0114). Concerning CMC prognostic value, only the CellSearch results showed a significant association with overall survival ( = 0.006). However, due to the higher sensitivity of the new S100-EPISPOT assay, it would be interesting to determine whether this functional test could be used in patients with non-metastatic melanoma for the early detection of tumor relapse and for monitoring the treatment response.
转移性黑色素瘤是最具侵袭性和耐药性的癌症之一，总体生存率非常低。循环黑色素瘤细胞（CMC）于 1991 年首次被描述。然而，由于涉及异质患者人群和不同检测方法的结果存在冲突，CMC 检测的临床实用性尚未达成普遍共识。在这里，我们开发了一种新的基于 S100 蛋白分泌的上皮免疫斑点（EPISPOT）检测方法来检测活的 CMC（S100-EPISPOT）。然后，我们使用来自转移性黑色素瘤同质患者人群的血液样本，比较了 S100-EPISPOT 检测和 CellSearch CMC 试剂盒的结果。我们发现 S100-EPISPOT 的灵敏度明显高于 CellSearch。具体而言，使用 S100-EPISPOT 的患者中≥2 CMC 的百分比明显高于 CellSearch（分别为 48%和 21%；=0.0114）。关于 CMC 的预后价值，只有 CellSearch 结果与总生存率显著相关（=0.006）。然而，由于新的 S100-EPISPOT 检测方法具有更高的灵敏度，因此确定该功能检测是否可用于非转移性黑色素瘤患者以早期检测肿瘤复发并监测治疗反应将是有趣的。
