“…Several studies associate CTC number to OS and/or PFS of metastatic NSCLC patients (32,33,48,57), meanwhile others do not find these associations (70,71). Many small trials have also demonstrated the association between CTC count and therapy efficacy, comparing the count before and after therapy (38,(72)(73)(74), or during target therapy, in order to detect the onset of resistance mutations (50,54,62,66,75).…”