ReviewBiomedical journal2020
Bring along your friends: Homotypic and heterotypic circulating tumor cell clustering to accelerate metastasis.
Review in Biomedical journal, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 61 papers.
What it found
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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
61 citing papers in PubMed.
- Aberrant Transcription-Factor Expression and Regulatory microRNAs in Metastatic Breast Cancer.Cells · 2026Review
- The Origin of Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts (CAFs) in Brain Metastases: Seven Hypotheses and Current Evidence.Cancers · 2026Review
- Constructing Tumor Cellular Cluster Models and Their Evolutionary Dynamics to Decode Tumor Evolution.Cancer innovation · 2026Article
- Liquid biopsies for detection, characterization, and interception of therapy resistance in thoracic malignancies.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Review
- Circulating tumor cells as biomarkers in melanoma: techniques, challenges, and clinical applications.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2026Review
- Circulating Tumor Cells for the Monitoring of Lung Cancer Therapies.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Microglia limit brain tumor development by restricting tumor cell proliferation and inducing T-cell immunity.Molecular oncology · 2025Article
- Circulating tumor cells: Blood-based detection, molecular biology, and clinical applications.Cancer cell · 2025Review
- Circulating tumor cells and clusters as liquid biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of neuroblastoma.BMC cancer · 2025Article
- Cancer-associated fibroblasts as a potential novel liquid biopsy marker in cancer patients.Journal of experimental & clinical cancer research : CR · 2025Review
- Tumour hypoxia in driving genomic instability and tumour evolution.Nature reviews. Cancer · 2025Review
- A Melanoma Brain Metastasis CTC Signature and CTC:B-cell Clusters Associate with Secondary Liver Metastasis: A Melanoma Brain-Liver Metastasis Axis.Cancer research communications · 2025Article
- Inherently imperfect, inherently evolving - The pursuit of precision through biomarkers.Biomedical journal · 2025Article
- Mechanical signatures in cancer metastasis.npj biological physics and mechanics · 2025Review
- Clinical significance and heterogeneity of circulating tumor cells and clusters in breast cancer subtypes.PeerJ · 2025Review
- Complementary detection strategies for circulating tumor cells in breast cancer: clinical implications of combining immunofluorescence and cytopathological staining.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Article
- Excess shed mesothelin disrupts pancreatic cancer cell clustering to impair peritoneal colonization.FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology · 2024Article
- Multi-scale transcriptomics reveals that specific tumor cells promote lung adenocarcinoma metastasis through crosstalk with the microenvironment.Discover oncology · 2024Article
- A Preliminary Analysis of Circulating Tumor Microemboli from Breast Cancer Patients during Follow-Up Visits.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2024Article
- Adhesion of pancreatic tumor cell clusters by desmosomal molecules enhances early liver metastases formation.Scientific reports · 2024Article
1 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
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
Metastasis formation is a hallmark of invasive cancers and it is achieved through the shedding of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from the primary site into the blood circulation. There, CTCs are found as single cells or as multicellular clusters, with clusters carrying an elevated ability to survive within the bloodstream and initiate new metastatic lesions at distant sites. Clusters of CTCs include homotypic clusters made of cancer cells only, as well as heterotypic clusters that incorporate stromal or immune cells along with cancer cells. Both homotypic and heterotypic CTC clusters are characterized by a high metastasis-forming capability, high proliferation rate and by distinct molecular features compared to single CTCs, and their presence in the peripheral circulation of cancer patients is generally associated with a poor prognosis. In this short review, we summarize the current literature that describes homotypic and heterotypic CTC clusters, both in the context of their molecular characteristics as well as their value in the clinical setting. While CTC clusters have only recently emerged as key players in the metastatic process and many aspects of their biology remain to be investigated, a detailed understanding of their vulnerabilities may pave the way towards the generation of new metastasis-suppressing agents.
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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.