Vijay Jahnvi, Kumar B Deepak, Murthy V Srinivasa
Department of Pathology, ESIC Medical College and PGIMSR, Rajajinagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
J Cytol. 2024 Jan-Mar;41(1):41-46. doi: 10.4103/joc.joc_123_23. Epub 2023 Dec 28.
Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and is a major cause of morbidity. To deal with this magnitude of cancers and their diagnostic and prognostics, a multitude of prognostic biomarkers for various cancers have been explored over the decades, with detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the peripheral blood being one of them. This study was undertaken to explore the routine procedure of cell block in the cytopathology lab to isolate and detect CTCs.
In this cross-sectional study, 112 peripheral blood samples sent for routine blood investigations of various cancer patients were utilized for the preparation of cell block. The sections from the cell block were stained routinely and evaluated for the presence of CTCs. The statistical analysis was done using Mac Statplus software version 8.0.
The malignancies were tabulated as per the International Classification of Diseases for Oncology, third edition (ICD-O-3). The maximum number of cases were from C 50 (breast) - 41/112 (36.6%), followed by C15-C26 (Digestive organs) - 19/112 (16.9%), and C00-C14 (lip, oral cavity, and pharynx) - 18/112 (16.07%) cases. CTC was detected in six (5.35%) out of 112 cases, out of which three were from the breast and one each from category C6.9 (mouth), C32.0 (glottis), and C53.8 (cervix uteri).
Among various advanced and molecular techniques available for the detection of CTCs, the cell block technique proves to be one of the effective methods, especially in resource-limited settings as these can further be utilized for additional diagnostic techniques similar to the ones employed for routine paraffin blocks.
癌症是全球主要的死亡原因之一，也是发病的主要原因。为应对如此大量的癌症及其诊断和预后问题，数十年来人们探索了多种针对不同癌症的预后生物标志物，在外周血中检测循环肿瘤细胞（CTC）就是其中之一。本研究旨在探索细胞病理学实验室中制备细胞块以分离和检测CTC的常规程序。
在这项横断面研究中，112份送检各类癌症患者进行常规血液检查的外周血样本被用于制备细胞块。对细胞块切片进行常规染色，并评估CTC的存在情况。使用Mac Statplus软件8.0版进行统计分析。
恶性肿瘤按照国际肿瘤疾病分类第三版（ICD - O - 3）进行列表。病例数最多的是C50（乳腺）——41/112（36.6%），其次是C15 - C26（消化器官）——19/112（16.9%），以及C00 - C14（唇、口腔和咽）——18/112（16.07%）。112例中有6例（5.35%）检测到CTC，其中3例来自乳腺，1例分别来自C6.9（口腔）、C32.0（声门）和C53.8（子宫颈）。
在可用于检测CTC的各种先进和分子技术中，细胞块技术被证明是有效的方法之一，尤其是在资源有限的环境中，因为这些细胞块可进一步用于类似于常规石蜡块的其他诊断技术。
