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Circulating tumor cells in the clinical cancer diagnosis

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Abstract

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are cells that have shed into the vasculature or lymphatics from a primary tumor and are carried around the body in the blood circulation. CTCs undergo a series of migration, adhesion and aggregation to form metastases, leading to post-operative recurrence and metastasis in patients with malignant tumors. The detection and analysis of CTCs, as a new non-invasive diagnostic tool, plays an important role in tumor diagnosis, therapeutic efficacy, monitoring recurrence, prognosis assessment and tumor precision medical treatment.

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Abbreviations

CTCs:

Circulating tumor cells

PCR:

Polymerase chain reaction

qRT-PCR:

Quantitative real-time PCR

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31601156 to T.F), Jiangsu Science and Technology Association Young Science and Technology Talents Enrollment Project (toT.F), Changzhou Sci &Tech Program (CJ20180062 to T.F), the Project of Jiangsu Provincial Medical Youth Talent (QNRC2016267 to T.F), Changzhou Applied Basic Research Guiding Project (2017309 to P.Z) and Jiangsu Province “333 Tale nt Project” (BRA2018170 to P.Z).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Laboratory, The Affiliated Changzhou No. 2 People’s Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, 29 Xinglong Alley, Changzhou, 213000, China

    P. Zhang, H. Zhou, K. Lu, Y. Wang & T. Feng

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  1. P. Zhang
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  2. H. Zhou
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  3. K. Lu
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Correspondence to T. Feng.

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Zhang, P., Zhou, H., Lu, K. et al. Circulating tumor cells in the clinical cancer diagnosis. Clin Transl Oncol 22, 279–282 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12094-019-02139-2

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