Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2017 Aug;6(4):409-417.
doi: 10.21037/tlcr.2017.07.05.

The clinical utility of circulating tumour cells in patients with small cell lung cancer

Victoria Foy  1 , Fabiola Fernandez-Gutierrez  1 , Corinne Faivre-Finn  2   3 , Caroline Dive  1 , Fiona Blackhall  2   3
Affiliations
Review

The clinical utility of circulating tumour cells in patients with small cell lung cancer

Victoria Foy et al. Transl Lung Cancer Res. 2017 Aug.

Abstract

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) accounts for 15% of lung cancer diagnosed worldwide. It is aggressive and characterised by early metastatic spread with rapid development of chemo resistance such that less than 5% of patients diagnosed survive 5 years. Surgery is rarely performed and failure to identify new effective treatments has been attributed in a large part to lack of good quality tumour biopsies available for translational research. Liquid biopsies provide a minimally invasive alternative to traditional tumour biopsy. Circulating tumour cells (CTCs) are abundant in SCLC and can be enriched and isolated from a venous blood sample. In recent years progress has been made into the molecular characterisation of CTCs and their use to form tumour xenografts in mice for preclinical studies. This review will discuss the current status of the clinical utility of CTCs in patients with SCLC, highlighting their potential application to treatment decision making, drug development in clinical trials and preclinical testing.

Keywords: Biomarker; circulating tumour cells (CTCs); small cell lung cancer (SCLC).

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

References

    1. Johnson BE, Grayson J, Makuch RW, et al. Ten-year survival of patients with small-cell lung cancer treated with combination chemotherapy with or without irradiation. J Clin Oncol 1990;8:396-401. 10.1200/JCO.1990.8.3.396 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Foster NR, Renfro LA, Schild SE, et al. Multitrial Evaluation of Progression-Free Survival as a Surrogate End Point for Overall Survival in First-Line Extensive-Stage Small-Cell Lung Cancer. J Thorac Oncol;10:1099-106. 10.1097/JTO.0000000000000548 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zelen M. Keynote address on biostatistics and data retrieval. Cancer Chemother Rep 3 1973;4:31-42. - PubMed
    1. Shepherd FA, Crowley J, Van Houtte P, et al. The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer lung cancer staging project: proposals regarding the clinical staging of small cell lung cancer in the forthcoming (seventh) edition of the tumor, node, metastasis classification for lung cancer. J Thorac Oncol 2007;2:1067-77. 10.1097/JTO.0b013e31815bdc0d - DOI - PubMed
    1. Evans WK, Shepherd FA, Feld R, et al. VP-16 and cisplatin as first-line therapy for small-cell lung cancer. J Clin Oncol 1985;3:1471-7. 10.1200/JCO.1985.3.11.1471 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources