Yang Chaogang, Chen Fangfang, Wang Shuyi, Xiong Bin
Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.
Hubei Key Laboratory of Tumor Biological Behaviors, Wuhan, China.
Front Oncol. 2019 Dec 13;9:1427. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2019.01427. eCollection 2019.
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which are now defined as the "break away" cancer cells that derive from primary- or metastatic-tumor sites and present in the bloodstream, are considered to be the precursors of metastases. Considering the key role of CTCs in cancer progression, researchers are committed to analyze them in the past decades and many technologies have been proposed for achieving CTCs isolation and characterization with highly sensitivity and specificity until now. On this basis, clinicians gradually realize the clinical values of CTCs' detection through various clinical studies. As a "liquid biopsy," CTCs' detection and measurement can supply important information for predicting patient's survival, monitoring of response/resistance, assessment of minimal residual disease, evaluating distant metastasis, and sometimes, customizing therapy choices. Nowadays, eliminating CTCs of the blood circulation has been regarded as a promising method to prevent tumor metastasis. However, research on CTCs still faces many challenges. Herein, we present an overview to discuss the current concept of CTCs, summarize the available techniques for CTCs detection, and provide an update on the clinical significance of CTCs in gastrointestinal malignancies, especially focus on gastric and colorectal cancer.
循环肿瘤细胞（CTCs），目前被定义为源自原发性或转移性肿瘤部位并存在于血液中的“脱离”癌细胞，被认为是转移的前体。鉴于CTCs在癌症进展中的关键作用，在过去几十年里研究人员致力于对其进行分析，到目前为止已经提出了许多技术来实现对CTCs的高灵敏度和特异性分离及表征。在此基础上，临床医生通过各种临床研究逐渐认识到CTCs检测的临床价值。作为一种“液体活检”，CTCs的检测和测量可为预测患者生存、监测反应/耐药性、评估微小残留病、评估远处转移以及有时定制治疗选择提供重要信息。如今，消除血液循环中的CTCs已被视为预防肿瘤转移的一种有前景的方法。然而，对CTCs的研究仍面临许多挑战。在此，我们进行综述以讨论CTCs的当前概念，总结CTCs检测的现有技术，并提供CTCs在胃肠道恶性肿瘤中临床意义的最新情况，尤其关注胃癌和结直肠癌。
