Department of Post-Baccalaureate Medicine, National Chung Hsing University, 145 Xingda Road, Taichung City 40277, Taiwan.
Department of Obstetrics Gynecology, Tung's Taichung Metroharbor Hospital, 699 Taiwan Boulevard, Section 8, Wuchi, Taichung City 43522, Taiwan.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Jan 24;24(3):2300. doi: 10.3390/ijms24032300.
The detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is an emerging strategy for the early detection, prognostication, and identification of recurrent cancer. The clinical utility of CTC detection has been established, but few studies have employed this strategy for the detection of gynecologic cancers. Here, we present a novel, biochip-based microfluidic device for the detection of CTCs in gynecologic cancers. The study cohort included three patients with cervical cancer, eight with endometrial cancer, two with ovarian cancer, two with breast cancer, and one with vaginal small cell carcinoma. Four cancer type-specific molecular markers (PanCK, GATA3, HER2, and HE4), as well as CD13, were used for prognostication and recurrence detection, along with downstream genomic analysis. GATA3 and HER2 were markedly expressed in the patients with cervical cancer, and this expression was strongly correlated with the early detection of recurrent disease. All four molecular markers were expressed preoperatively in the patients with endometrial cancer, and the re-expression of different markers was observed at follow-up before recurrence was confirmed. CD13 was identified as an alternative prognostic marker for both cervical and endometrial cancer. Our pilot study indicated that the novel CTC detection system can be used for prognostication and early detection of disease recurrence, which needed further investigation.
循环肿瘤细胞 (CTC) 的检测是一种新兴的策略，可用于早期检测、预后和识别复发性癌症。CTC 检测的临床实用性已经得到确立，但很少有研究采用这种策略来检测妇科癌症。在这里，我们提出了一种用于检测妇科癌症 CTC 的新型基于生物芯片的微流控装置。研究队列包括 3 例宫颈癌患者、8 例子宫内膜癌患者、2 例卵巢癌患者、2 例乳腺癌患者和 1 例阴道小细胞癌患者。使用了四种癌症类型特异性的分子标志物（PanCK、GATA3、HER2 和 HE4）以及 CD13，用于预后和复发检测，并进行了下游基因组分析。GATA3 和 HER2 在宫颈癌患者中明显表达，并且这种表达与早期检测复发性疾病密切相关。在子宫内膜癌患者中，所有四个分子标志物在术前均有表达，并且在复发确认之前的随访中观察到不同标志物的重新表达。CD13 被鉴定为宫颈癌和子宫内膜癌的替代预后标志物。我们的初步研究表明，新型 CTC 检测系统可用于疾病复发的预后和早期检测，这需要进一步研究。
