Circulating Tumor Cell Detection Technologies and Clinical Utility: Challenges and Opportunities
1
Neural Engineering and Nanobiosensors Group, Biomedical Engineering Program, Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, American University of Beirut, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon
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Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon
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Department of Anatomy, Cell Biology and Physiological Sciences, American University of Beirut, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon
4
Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, 77030 TX, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Cancers 2020, 12(7), 1930; https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers12071930
Received: 18 April 2020
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Revised: 3 June 2020
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Accepted: 17 June 2020
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Published: 17 July 2020
(This article belongs to the Collection Cancer Biomarkers)
The potential clinical utility of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the diagnosis and management of cancer has drawn a lot of attention in the past 10 years. CTCs disseminate from tumors into the bloodstream and are believed to carry vital information about tumor onset, progression, and metastasis. In addition, CTCs reflect different biological aspects of the primary tumor they originate from, mainly in their genetic and protein expression. Moreover, emerging evidence indicates that CTC liquid biopsies can be extended beyond prognostication to pharmacodynamic and predictive biomarkers in cancer patient management. A key challenge in harnessing the clinical potential and utility of CTCs is enumerating and isolating these rare heterogeneous cells from a blood sample while allowing downstream CTC analysis. That being said, there have been serious doubts regarding the potential value of CTCs as clinical biomarkers for cancer due to the low number of promising outcomes in the published results. This review aims to present an overview of the current preclinical CTC detection technologies and the advantages and limitations of each sensing platform, while surveying and analyzing the published evidence of the clinical utility of CTCs.
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Keywords:
circulating tumor cells; liquid biopsy; prognosis; cancer management; biosensors
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MDPI and ACS Style
Habli, Z.; AlChamaa, W.; Saab, R.; Kadara, H.; Khraiche, M.L. Circulating Tumor Cell Detection Technologies and Clinical Utility: Challenges and Opportunities. Cancers 2020, 12, 1930. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers12071930
AMA Style
Habli Z, AlChamaa W, Saab R, Kadara H, Khraiche ML. Circulating Tumor Cell Detection Technologies and Clinical Utility: Challenges and Opportunities. Cancers. 2020; 12(7):1930. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers12071930
Chicago/Turabian StyleHabli, Zeina, Walid AlChamaa, Raya Saab, Humam Kadara, and Massoud L. Khraiche. 2020. "Circulating Tumor Cell Detection Technologies and Clinical Utility: Challenges and Opportunities" Cancers 12, no. 7: 1930. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers12071930
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