Current Understanding of Circulating Tumor Cells - Potential Value in Malignancies of the Central Nervous System.

Lukasz A. Adamczyk,Jeff M. P. Holly,Aleksandra Frankow,Kathreena M. Kurian,Claire Perks,Hayley Patricia Ellis,Harry R. Haynes,Hannah Williams

doi:10.3389/fneur.2015.00174

Lukasz A. Adamczyk, Jeff M. P. Holly + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2015.00174

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Abstract

Detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood via so-called “liquid biopsies” carries enormous clinical potential in malignancies of the central nervous system (CNS) because of the potential to follow disease evolution with a blood test, without the need for repeat neurosurgical procedures with their inherent risk of patient morbidity. To date, studies in non-CNS malignancies, particularly in breast cancer, show increasing reproducibility of detection methods for these rare tumor cells in the circulation. However, no method has yet received full recommendation to use in clinical practice, in part because of lack of a sufficient evidence base regarding clinical utility. In CNS malignancies, one of the main challenges is finding a suitable biomarker for identification of these cells, because automated systems, such as the widely used Cell Search system, are reliant on markers, such as the epithelial cell adhesion molecule, which are not present in CNS tumors. This review examines methods for CTC enrichment and detection, and reviews the progress in non-CNS tumors and the potential for using this technique in human brain tumors.

Highlights

Detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is of current great interest in central nervous system (CNS) malignancies because of recent intriguing reports, suggesting that cells from a proportion of patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) may be detectable in the bloodstream [1,2,3]
Due to the scarcity of CTCs in the blood the interest in this field initially shifted to enhancement of cell detection and identification using techniques, such as immunomagnetic labeling followed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) [8, 9]
Apart from CTCs, circulating tumor DNA fragments offer an attractive quantification tool through digital PCR assay and targeted deep sequencing [63], which is based on the samples obtained from 30 patients with metastatic breast cancer

Summary

Introduction

Detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is of current great interest in central nervous system (CNS) malignancies because of recent intriguing reports, suggesting that cells from a proportion of patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) may be detectable in the bloodstream [1,2,3]. CTCs – value in CNS malignancies metastatic breast cancer in patients receiving autologous stem cell transplants [7]. Circulating tumor cells have been described in most common carcinomas including breast, prostate, and colorectal carcinoma [11, 12], and most recently in CNS malignancies [13,14,15,16,17].

Results

Conclusion