Fol. Biol. 2011, 57, 151-161
Methods for Detection of Circulating Tumour Cells and Their Clinical Value in Cancer Patients
Currently available analytical methods enable identification, detection and characterization of circulating tumour cells in the peripheral blood and disseminated tumour cells in the bone marrow of breast cancer patients. About 0.01 % of the circulating tumour cells observed in the blood are able to form metastases. Therefore, they could be used for estimation of the risk for metastatic relapse, as a diagnostic tool for patient stratification, early determination of the therapy failure, or potential risk of resistance to the given therapeutic intervention. New therapeutic molecular targets could be identified for management of cancer patients using circulating tumour cell detection. The following review summarizes introduced methods of circulating tumour cell detection and their possible application in clinics.
Keywords
circulating tumour cells, disseminated tumour cells, clinical value, detection methods, breast cancer.
Funding
This work was supported by Charles University Grant Agency (GAUK 7709/2009), Czech Republic, and Internal Grant Agency of the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic (NS 9976).
References
Copyright
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
