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Review
. 2013 Sep 19:7:352.
doi: 10.3332/ecancer.2013.352.

Circulating tumour cells in breast cancer

Natalia Krawczyk  1 , Malgorzata Banys, Andreas Hartkopf, Carsten Hagenbeck, Carola Melcher, Tanja Fehm
Affiliations
Review

Circulating tumour cells in breast cancer

Natalia Krawczyk et al. Ecancermedicalscience. .

Abstract

Evaluation of isolated tumour cells in bone marrow (BM) and peripheral blood has become a major focus of translational cancer research. The presence of disseminated tumour cells in BM is a common phenomenon observed in 30-40% of primary breast cancer patients and independently predicts reduced clinical outcome. The detection of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) in blood might become a desired alternative to the invasive and painful BM biopsy. Recent clinical trials confirmed the feasibility of CTC detection as a robust and reproducible parameter for prognostication in both adjuvant and metastatic setting. The characterisation of CTCs might become an important biomarker for therapy monitoring and help to identify specific targets for novel therapeutic strategies.

Keywords: biomarkers; breast cancer; circulating tumour cell; disseminated tumour cell; prognosis.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. CTC positivity rates depending on detection method reported by several authors.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Heterogeneity of ITCs shown by immunofluorescence. (A) Cytokeratin positive ITC. (B) Cytokeratin and ER positive ITC. (C) Cytokeratin and HER2-positive ITC.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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