Detection of circulating tumor cells in colorectal cancer patients using the GILUPI CellCollector: results from a prospective, single‐center study

Abstract

The GILUPI CellCollector (CC) is a novel in vivo circulating tumor cell (CTC) detection device reported to overcome the limitations of small blood sample volumes. The aim of this prospective, blinded study was to evaluate the clinical application of the CC and to compare its performance to the CellSearch (CS) system in M0 and M1 colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. A total of 80 patients (31 M0, 49 M1) with CRC were enrolled. CTCs were simultaneously measured in the peripheral blood using CS and the CC, and the results of both assays were correlated to clinicopathological variables and overall survival. The total number of detected CTCs and CTC‐positive patients did not significantly differ between both assays. In the M0 patients, the CC detected CTCs more frequently than CS. There was no significant difference in total CTC numbers detected with the CC between M0 and M1 patients. In addition, no significant correlation with clinicopathological parameters or overall survival was observed with CC CTCs. In contrast, detection of CTCs with CS was significantly correlated with Union for International Cancer Control stage and reduced overall survival. There was no correlation between CTCs detected by the CC and the CS system. Using in silico analysis, we estimate that CC screens a volume of 0.33–18 mL during in vivo application, in contrast to much higher volumes reported elsewhere. In conclusion, while being safe and easy to use, the CC did not outperform CS in terms of CTC yield or sensitivity. While CTC detection in M0 CRC patients was significantly increased with the CC, the clinical relevance of these CTCs appears inferior to the cells identified by the CS system.

Site of Relapse of the Ductal Adenocarcinoma of the Pancreas affects Survival after Multimodal Therapy

“…Thus, future studies should further investigate genomic sequencing of the primary tumor and the metastasis to detect mutational changes for future targeted therapies. Furthermore, sensitive detection methods for circulating tumor cells to estimate the presumed patients tumor load should be evaluated and thus enhance patient selection prior to relapse therapy [35].…”

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“…While being safe and easy to use, the CellCollector ® did not outperform CellSearch ® in terms of CTCs yield or sensitivity. While CTC detection in cancer colorectal patients in baseline was significantly increased with the CellCollector ® , the clinical relevance of these CTCs appears inferior to the cells identified by the CellSearch ® system [42]. For CellCollector ® , the sensitivity and specificity of the in vivo CTC detection strategy for the diagnosis of early-stage lung cancer were 52.94% and 90%, respectively [41].…”

Liquid Biopsy in Colorectal Carcinoma: Clinical Applications and Challenges

“…Subsequent survival analysis showed that the presence of three or more CTCs was significantly associated with poor OS. Analogously, in the subgroup of 29 patients with nonmetastatic disease, detection of one or more CTCs correlated significantly with a worse OS in the univariate analysis [ 191 ]. In contrast, it has been shown that in a cohort of 344 patients with non-malignant diseases or healthy subjects, there was only one sample with more than one CTC [ 84 ].…”

“…In contrast, CellSearch ® requires collection of 7.5 mL blood for analysis. Nevertheless, the rate of CTC detection was similar by both platforms with at least one CTC detected by CellCollector ® ( ) in 33 patients from a cohort of 80 CRC patients (41.3% positivity) [ 191 ].…”