ReviewAnnals of clinical and laboratory science2013
Circulating tumor cells: a review of present methods and the need to identify heterogeneous phenotypes.
Review in Annals of clinical and laboratory science, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 88 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
88 citing papers in PubMed.
- Present status of prostate cancer diagnosis, limitations, challenges, and future endeavors.Annals of medicine · 2026Review
- Circulating tumour cells as a window into lethality in prostate cancer.Nature reviews. Urology · 2026Review
- Article
- Review
- From Lab to Clinic: Artificial Intelligence with Spectroscopic Liquid Biopsies.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Liquid biopsy in breast cancer: Redefining precision medicine.The journal of liquid biopsy · 2025Review
- Redefining cancer care: harnessing circulating tumor cells' potential for improved diagnosis and prognosis.Cancer cell international · 2025Review
- Circulating tumor cells and clusters as liquid biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of neuroblastoma.BMC cancer · 2025Article
- Development of PowerMag System II for Isolation of Circulating Tumor Cells with Improved Purity.Biomedicines · 2025Article
- Liquid biopsy in hepatocellular carcinoma: Challenges, advances, and clinical implications.Clinical and molecular hepatology · 2025Review
- Rectal Cancer: Exploring Predictive Biomarkers Through Molecular Pathways Involved in Carcinogenesis.Biology · 2024Review
- Liquid biopsy for evaluating mutations and chromosomal aberrations in cerebrospinal fluid from patients with primary or metastatic CNS tumors.The journal of liquid biopsy · 2024Article
- Characterization of EpCAM-Positive and EpCAM-Negative Tumor Cells in Early-Stage Breast Cancer.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Article
- Heterogeneity and molecular landscape of melanoma: implications for targeted therapy.Molecular biomedicine · 2024Review
- Ultra high content analyses of circulating and tumor associated hybrid cells reveal phenotypic heterogeneity.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Liquid biopsy for gastric cancer: Techniques, applications, and future directions.World journal of gastroenterology · 2024Review
- Breast Tumor Metastasis and Its Microenvironment: It Takes Both Seed and Soil to Grow a Tumor and Target It for Treatment.Cancers · 2024Review
- Targeting circulating tumor cells to prevent metastases.Human cell · 2024Review
- Article
28 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The measurement and characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) hold promise for advancing personalized therapeutics. CTCs are the precursor to metastatic cancer and thus have the potential to radically alter patient treatment and outcome. Currently, clinical information provided by the enumeration of CTCs is limited to predicting clinical outcome. Other areas of interest in advancing the practice of pathology include: using CTCs for early detection of potential metastasis, determining and monitoring the efficacy of individualized treatment regimens, and predicting site-specific metastasis. Important hurdles to overcome in obtaining this type of clinical information involve present limitations in defining, detecting, and isolating CTCs. Currently, CTCs are detected using epithelial markers. The definition of what distinguishes a CTC should be expanded to include CTCs with heterogeneous phenotypes, and markers should be identified to enable a more comprehensive capture. Additionally, most methods available for detecting CTCs do not capture functionally viable CTCs. Retaining functional viability would provide a significant advantage in characterizing CTC-subtypes that may predict the site of metastatic invasion and thus assist in selecting effective treatment regimens. In this review we describe areas of clinical interest followed by a summary of current circulating cell-separation technologies and present limitations. Lastly, we provide insight into what is required to overcome these limitations as they relate to applications in advancing the practice of pathology and laboratory medicine.
Indexed as
Identifiers
23884225PMC5060940What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.