Janjua Divya, Chaudhary Apoorva, Joshi Udit, Tripathi Tanya, Jaggi Vinita Kumar, Bharti Alok Chandra
Molecular Oncology Laboratory, Department of Zoology, University of Delhi (North Campus), Delhi, 110007, India.
Delhi State Cancer Institute (EAST), Government of Delhi NCR, Dilshad Garden, Delhi, 110095, India.
Cancer Cell Int. 2025 Jul 17;25(1):267. doi: 10.1186/s12935-025-03883-y.
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) represent a small but clinically relevant pool of cells from tumors that can be sampled with minimally-invasive liquid biopsy procedures. They are dynamic and poorly-defined transition state of cancer cells, offering vital insights into tumor progression and metastasis. CTC frequencies are emerging as real-time means for therapeutic monitoring and patient stratification across different malignancies. However, their detection, isolation, and characterization pose a major challenge leading to variation in their counts that limit their clinical utility. This review delves into the key parameter, CTC counts, which often correlate with clinical outcomes. Further, it highlights the significance of culturing CTCs in vitro and employing CTC-derived xenograft (CDX) models to obtain in vivo insights into tumor biology, treatment efficacy, and personalized medicine strategies. The review examines the role of CTCs as diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic monitoring marker for different cancers. It also discusses the opportunities in CTC-directed clinical utility and associated limitations such as CTC heterogeneity and technological variations among different isolation strategies that hinder their widespread implementation. Hence, it underscores the evolving importance of CTCs in clinical oncology.
循环肿瘤细胞（CTCs）是肿瘤中一小部分但具有临床相关性的细胞群，可通过微创液体活检程序进行采样。它们是癌细胞动态且定义不清的过渡状态，为肿瘤进展和转移提供了重要见解。CTCs频率正在成为跨不同恶性肿瘤进行治疗监测和患者分层的实时手段。然而，它们的检测、分离和表征构成了一项重大挑战，导致其计数存在差异，限制了它们的临床应用。本综述深入探讨了关键参数CTCs计数，其通常与临床结果相关。此外，它强调了体外培养CTCs以及采用CTCs衍生的异种移植（CDX）模型以获得肿瘤生物学、治疗效果和个性化医疗策略的体内见解的重要性。该综述研究了CTCs作为不同癌症的诊断、预后和治疗监测标志物的作用。它还讨论了CTCs导向的临床应用中的机会以及相关局限性，如CTCs异质性和不同分离策略之间的技术差异，这些都阻碍了它们的广泛应用。因此，它强调了CTCs在临床肿瘤学中不断演变的重要性。
