ArticleFrontiers in oncology2022
A comprehensive comparison of circulating tumor cells and breast imaging modalities as screening tools for breast cancer in Chinese women.
Article in Frontiers in oncology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- Circulating Tumor Cell Detection for Therapeutic and Prognostic Roles in Breast Cancer.Cancer medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) enumeration and machine-learning based diagnostic biomarkers for breast cancer detection.BMC cancer · 2026Article
- Establishment of a new method for detection of TROP2-positive circulating tumor cells in breast cancer.BMC cancer · 2025Article
- Review
- Detection, significance and potential utility of circulating tumor cells in clinical practice in breast cancer (Review).Oncology letters · 2025Review
- Dissemination of Circulating Tumor Cells in Breast and Prostate Cancer: Implications for Early Detection.Endocrinology · 2024Review
- Circulating tumour cells for early detection of clinically relevant cancer.Nature reviews. Clinical oncology · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been recognized as a sensitive biomarker for breast cancer (BC). This study aimed to comprehensively compare CTC with imaging modalities, including ultrasonography, mammography, and contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in screening for BC in Chinese women. Methods: Three hundred forty-three participants were enrolled in this study, including 102 treatment-naive BC patients, 177 with breast benign diseases (BBD) and 64 healthy female patients. All participants underwent CTC testing and at least one of the following examinations, ultrasonography, mammography, and MRI at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University between December 2017 and November 2020. CTCs were quantitatively assessed using cell counting (CTC detection rate/counts) and categorically examined using a cutoff value (CTC classification). The diagnostic power of CTC tests and imaging modalities, including accuracy and capability to predict clinicopathological characteristics of BC, were evaluated and compared. Results: CTC classification with a cutoff value of 2 showed a "good" diagnostic accuracy of 0.889 for early- to mid-stage BC comparable to breast imaging modalities using Breast Imaging-Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS). MRI demonstrated the highest sensitivity of 0.872 for BC, and CTC classification had the highest specificity of 0.938. A relatively low sensitivity was found for mammography in this cohort of patients. Successful detection of BC by CTC detection rate/counts, but not CTC classification, correlated with two important clinicopathological features, American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) stage and tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage. The detection power of certain imaging modalities was also associated with AJCC stage (ultrasonography, Conclusions: CTC tests have a diagnostic potency comparable to breast imaging modalities, and may be used as an alternative screening tool for BC.
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