Quantification of circulating endothelial cells as a predictor of response to chemotherapy with platinum and pemetrexed in patients with advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung carcinoma

Abstract

In this homogeneous group of patients with NSCLC, there is no correlation between response to treatment and CEC baseline levels. The increase in CEC numbers after the first cycle could be a negative predictive factor.

Circulating Endothelial Cells for Evaluation of Tumor Response in Non-Small Cell lung cancer patients receiving first-line chemotherapy

“…According to the 75 th percentile of CEC counts for the entire group, we found that baseline CEC count was not a predictive factor for either PFS or OS in advanced NSCLC patients. Our results were consistent with the findings of previous studies, in which more recent techniques have been used for CEC enumeration (35, 36). Using flow cytometry, no significant difference in the median PFS duration was obtained between NSCLC patients with high basal CEC levels and those with low CEC levels at diagnosis (35).…”

“…Using flow cytometry, no significant difference in the median PFS duration was obtained between NSCLC patients with high basal CEC levels and those with low CEC levels at diagnosis (35). Similar results were recorded for both PFS and OS in advanced nonsquamous subtypes according to the mean level of CECs quantified using the semiautomated IMS technique (36). However, no significant difference in baseline CEC levels was observed among histological subtypes in NSCLC (33, 37).…”

“…However, CEC levels can be modified both positively and negatively depending on the agents used (41). In a recent study, no significant correlation was observed between changes in CEC levels and tumor response in NSCLC patients with clinical benefit after chemotherapy with platinum salt plus pemetrexed (36). Unlike in our work, the patients included in that study had nonsquamous subtypes of lung cancer in a metastatic stage.…”

“…The larger number of patients with progression after treatment in our study also gives it much greater validity. In comparison with their baseline levels, it has recently been shown that an increase of more than 50% in the logarithm of CEC count after first and second cycle of chemotherapy is significantly correlated with PD in NSCLC (36). Similar findings were obtained in NSCLC patients with PD after first-line chemotherapy in our study.…”

Prognostic value of circulating endothelial cells in metastatic colorectal cancer

“…It was therefore the aim of the present study to investigate the prognostic value of CEC in patients with CRC liver metastases who underwent potentially curative therapy using the semi-automated and highly reproducible CellSearch System for CEC detection [8,10–12]. As CTC are well-established prognostic markers in primary and metastatic CRC [13–22], we aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of CEC in a ‘head-to-head’ comparison with CTC in the same cohort of patients with metastatic CRC.…”