Clinical utility of circulating tumor cells in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer

Abstract

Several different studies have addressed the role of the circulating tumor cells (CTC) in nonsmall-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In particular, the potential of CTC analysis in the early diagnosis of NSCLC and in the prediction of the outcome of patients with early and advanced NSCLC have been explored. A major limit of these studies is that they used different techniques for CTC isolation and enumeration, they employed different thresholds to discriminate between high-and low-risk patients, and they enrolled heterogeneous and often small cohort of patients. Nevertheless, the results of many studies are concordant in indicating a correlation between high CTC count and poor prognosis in both early and advanced NSCLC. The reduction of CTC number following treatment might also represent an important indicator of sensitivity to therapy in patients with metastatic disease. Preliminary data also suggest the potential for CTC analysis in the early diagnosis of NSCLC in high-risk individuals. However, these findings need to be confirmed in large prospective trials in order to be transferred to the clinical practice.The molecular profiling of single CTC in NSCLC might provide important information on tumor biology and on the mechanisms involved in tumor dissemination and in acquired resistance to targeted therapies. In this respect, xenografts derived from CTC might represent a valuable tool to investigate these phenomena and to develop novel therapeutic strategies.

Tumor‐proximal liquid biopsy to improve diagnostic and prognostic performances of circulating tumor cells

“…Most studies reported a strong correlation between peripheral blood CTC detection and OS. Tumor recurrence also was associated with CTC detection (Gallo et al ., ).…”

Liquid Biopsy in Clinical Management of Breast, Lung, and Colorectal Cancer

“…While in patients with BC ( 78 , 185 ), mCRPC ( 186 ), and NSCLC ( 104 ) a cut-off value of ≥5 CTC per 7.5 ml of blood indicates worse prognosis, in CRC a cut-off of ≥3 CTC per 7.5 ml of blood is predictive of shorter OS ( 124 ). Higher CTC counts in pulmonary vein and mesenteric blood than in peripheral blood of LC and CRC patients, respectively, have been reported ( 187 , 188 ). In the next section, we will discuss prognostic value of CTC number and use of CTC in monitoring the effect of anticancer therapy.…”

Single tube liquid biopsy for advanced non‐small cell lung cancer

“…2 While the clinical utility of circulating tumor cells (CTC) and cell-free circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has been extensively investigated in recent years, other components such as tumorderived extracellular vesicles (tdEV) have only recently been put to the focus of research. [3][4][5][6][7] CTC are epithelial cells disseminated into the blood from primary or metastatic sites. The presence of CTC is predictive of relatively short survival in several types of cancer, including breast, prostate, colon, small and non-small cell lung carcinoma.…”