Abstract
Cancer metastasis is the primary cause of high mortality of cancer patients. Enumeration of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the bloodstream is a very important indicator to estimate the therapeutic outcome in various metastatic cancers. The aim of this article is to review recent developments on the CTC isolation technologies in microdevices. Based on the categories of biochemical and biophysical isolation approaches, a literature review and in-depth discussion will be included to provide an overview of this challenging topic. The current excellent developments suggest promising CTC isolation methods in order to establish a precise indicator of the therapeutic outcome of cancer patients.
Highlights
According to clinical reports, cancer metastasis is the primary cause of high mortality of cancer patients [1,2]
Because tissue biopsies are difficult to obtain from patients for evaluating the response of cancer therapy, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are recognized as liquid biopsies to collect tumor cells from blood
Colon, and prostate cancer revealed that the presence of CTCs in 7.5 mL blood strongly correlates with progression-free and overall survival [6,7,8]
Summary
Cancer metastasis is the primary cause of high mortality of cancer patients [1,2]. Cancer metastasis is a multistep process of tumor cells escaping from the primary tumor site, entering into the bloodstream, arresting at the secondary site, extravasating into the tissue, and forming secondary tumor colonies [3,4]. Because tissue biopsies are difficult to obtain from patients for evaluating the response of cancer therapy, CTCs are recognized as liquid biopsies to collect tumor cells from blood. The isolation of CTCs from blood samples can obtain tumor cells for evaluating the cancer progression or the response to cancer therapy. A literature review and in-depth discussion of these microdevices are included in this review article These developments provide a solid foundation to achieve a promising CTC isolation in order to establish a precise indicator of therapeutic outcome for cancer patients.
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