Detection of circulating epithelial cells in the blood of patients with breast cancer: comparison of three techniques

This study compares the sensitivities and specificities of three techniques for the detection of circulating epithelial cells in the blood of patients with breast cancer. The number of circulating epithelial cells present in the blood of 40 patients with metastatic breast cancer and 20 healthy volun...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:British journal of cancer Vol. 92; no. 5; pp. 906 - 912
Main Authors: Ring, A E, Zabaglo, L, Ormerod, M G, Smith, I E, Dowsett, M
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 14.03.2005
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects:
Adult
Aged
Base Sequence
Biological and medical sciences
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Breast Neoplasms - blood
Breast Neoplasms - pathology
Cancer Research
DNA Primers
Drug Resistance
Epidemiology
Epithelial Cells - pathology
Female
Humans
Keratins - analysis
Lymphatic Metastasis
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Molecular Diagnostics
Molecular Medicine
Neoplasm Metastasis
Neoplasm Staging
Oncology
Reference Values
Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
Tumors
breast cancer
circulating tumour cells
micrometastases
Human
Mammary gland diseases
Blood cell
Cancerology
Epithelial cell
Breast cancer
Diagnosis
Technique
Malignant tumor
Comparative study
ISSN:0007-0920, 1532-1827
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This study compares the sensitivities and specificities of three techniques for the detection of circulating epithelial cells in the blood of patients with breast cancer. The number of circulating epithelial cells present in the blood of 40 patients with metastatic breast cancer and 20 healthy volunteers was determined by: immunomagnetic separation (IMS) and laser scanning cytometry (LSC), cell filtration and LSC and a multimarker real-time RT–PCR assay. Numbers of cytokeratin-positive cells identified and expression of three PCR markers were significantly higher in the blood of patients with breast cancer than in healthy volunteers. Using the upper 95% confidence interval of cells detected in controls to determine positive patient samples: 30% of patients with metastatic breast cancer were positive following cell filtration, 48% following IMS, and 60, 45 and 35% using real-time RT–PCR for cytokeratin 19, mammaglobin and prolactin-inducible peptide. Samples were significantly more likely to be positive for at least one PCR marker than by cell filtration (83 vs 30%, P <0.001) or IMS (83 vs 48%, P <0.001). The use of a multimarker real-time RT–PCR assay was therefore found to be the most sensitive technique for the detection of circulating epithelial cells in the blood of patients with breast cancer.
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ISSN:0007-0920
1532-1827
DOI:10.1038/sj.bjc.6602418