Observational studyInternational journal of cancer2020
A novel circulating tumor cell subpopulation for treatment monitoring and molecular characterization in biliary tract cancer.
Observational study in International journal of cancer, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- Analysis of Single Circulating Tumor Cells in Renal Cell Carcinoma Reveals Phenotypic Heterogeneity and Genomic Alterations Related to Progression.International journal of molecular sciences · 2020Trial
- Detection of circulating tumor cells in cholangiocarcinoma via epithelial-mesenchymal transition markers and their application.iScience · 2026Article
- Phenotypic Characterization and Sorting of Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) Using a Digital Image-Based Sorter.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2026Article
- Single-cell multi-omics in biliary tract cancers: decoding heterogeneity, microenvironment, and treatment strategies.Molecular biomedicine · 2025Review
- The Search for Risk, Diagnostic, and Prognostic Biomarkers of Cholangiocarcinoma and Their Biological and Clinicopathologic Significance.The American journal of pathology · 2025Review
- Liquid biopsy in biliary tract cancers: early diagnosis, precision therapy, and prognostic evaluation.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Review
- Liquid biopsy in gastrointestinal oncology: clinical applications and translational integration of ctDNA, CTCs, and sEVs.Oncology reviews · 2025Review
- Circulating tumor cells: from new biological insights to clinical practice.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2024Review
- Article
- Powering single-cell genomics to unravel circulating tumour cell subpopulations in non-small cell lung cancer patients.Journal of cancer research and clinical oncology · 2023Article
- Current Role and Future Perspectives of Immunotherapy and Circulating Factors in Treatment of Biliary Tract Cancers.International journal of medical sciences · 2023Review
- Targeting PIK3CA Actionable Mutations in the Circulome: A Proof of Concept in Metastatic Breast Cancer.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Epithelial circulating tumor cells with a heterogeneous phenotype are associated with metastasis in NSCLC.Journal of cancer research and clinical oncology · 2022Article
- Novel approaches in search for biomarkers of cholangiocarcinoma.World journal of gastroenterology · 2022Review
- Development of Metal-Organic Framework-Based Dual Antibody Nanoparticles for the Highly Specific Capture and Gradual Release of Circulating Tumor Cells.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2022Review
- Circulating tumor cells: biology and clinical significance.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2021Review
- Vimentin-Positive Circulating Tumor Cells as Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarkers in Patients with Biliary Tract Cancer.Journal of clinical medicine · 2021Article
- Potential utility of liquid biopsies in the management of patients with biliary tract cancers: A review.World journal of gastrointestinal oncology · 2021Review
- Next-Generation Biomarkers for Cholangiocarcinoma.Cancers · 2021Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In biliary tract cancer (BTC), tissue biopsies to guide treatment are rarely feasible, thus implementing liquid biopsy approaches to improve patient management represents a priority. So far, studies on circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in BTC are insufficient to promote their use in patient clinical management and are limited to EpCAM-enriched CTCs evaluated with the CellSearch. We applied a single-cell protocol allowing identification not only of epithelial CTCs (eCTCs), but also of nonconventional CTCs (ncCTCs) lacking epithelial and leukocyte markers, but presenting aberrant genomes as confirmed by copy number alterations and therefore representing a distinct subpopulation of bona fide CTCs. In 41 blood samples longitudinally collected from 21 patients with advanced-stage BTC, addition of ncCTC to classic eCTC led to a CTC-positivity increase from 19% to 83%. Patients presenting with at least 1 eCTC/10 ml of blood at baseline prior to treatment start had a significantly shorter median disease-specific survival (DSS) compared to those lacking eCTCs (9 months vs. 19 months, p = 0.03 by log-rank test). No differences in DSS were observed according to ncCTC-positivity, conversely, variations in ncCTC counts during, and at the end of treatment, were associated with the RECIST response supporting their role in treatment monitoring. Moreover, in 88 ncCTCs collected at different times during treatment, unsupervised clustering evidenced segregation of cells by patient's best response, allowing identification of genomic regions possibly involved in resistance mechanisms. The presence of ncCTCs beside eCTCs opens the way to exploiting liquid biopsy for optimizing clinical management in BTC.
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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.