SynthesisEuropean respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society2022
Circulating tumour cells in patients with lung cancer universally indicate poor prognosis.
Synthesis in European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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
29 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Predictive Role of ctDNA and CTCs in Patients with Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Receiving Immunotherapy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Pooled it
- Circulating tumor cells as prognostic biomarkers in advanced gastric cancer treated with CDC25B phosphatase inhibitors.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Entrectinib in ROS1-positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer: the phase 2/3 BFAST trial.Nature medicine · 2024Trial
- From spectroscopic analysis to clinical imaging: emerging applications and persistent challenges of raman spectroscopy in CTCs-based liquid biopsies.Annals of medicine · 2026Review
- Deep learning-based computed tomography quantification integrated with circulating tumor cells for prognostic evaluation in stage I lung adenocarcinoma.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2026Article
- Clinical and translational roles of circulating tumor cells in non-small cell and small cell lung cancer: a narrative review.Journal of thoracic disease · 2026Review
- The regulatory roles and therapeutic strategies of the solute carrier transporters in cancer metabolism.NPJ precision oncology · 2026Review
- Peripheral immune cell subsets as potential predictors of benefit from immune checkpoint blockade therapy in small cell lung cancer.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
- Prognostic Value of Circulating Tumor Cells and Cancer Associated Macrophage-Like Cells in Metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients: A Retrospective Exploratory Analysis.Oncology research · 2026Article
- Circulating Tumor Cells for the Monitoring of Lung Cancer Therapies.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Detection of circulating tumor cells and microemboli in the blood of lung adenocarcinoma in situ patients case reports.Discover oncology · 2025Article
- Diagnostic value of circulating tumor cells in gastric cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Translational cancer research · 2025Article
- Deciphering the prognostic signature of nonsmall cell lung cancer using cisplatin resistance and circulating tumor cell-related gene analysis.3 Biotech · 2025Article
- Circulating tumor cells: advancing personalized therapy in small cell lung cancer patients.Molecular oncology · 2025Review
- Prognostic Value of the Number of Circulating Tumor Cells in Patients with Metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.Micromachines · 2025Article
- Circulating Tumor Cells from Surgical Manipulation Predict Recurrence and Poor Prognosis in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Numerical Assessment of the Efficiency of a New Minimally Invasive Probe for the Isolation of Circulating Tumor Cells.International journal for numerical methods in biomedical engineering · 2025Article
- The correlation between epithelial-mesenchymal transition classification and MMP2 expression of circulating tumor cells and prognosis of advanced or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma.Open medicine (Warsaw, Poland) · 2025Article
- Circulating tumor cells: indicators of cancer progression, plasticity and utility for therapies.Pathology oncology research : POR · 2025Review
- Mutational differences between primary cancer tissue and circulating tumor cells in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer.Translational lung cancer research · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn lung cancer, the relevance of various circulating tumour cell (CTC) subgroups in different lung cancer subtypes is unclear. We performed a comprehensive meta-analysis to assess the prognostic value of CTCs in the different histological types of lung cancer, with particular respect to CTC subtypes, cut-offs and time points of CTC enumeration.
methodsWe searched MEDLINE, Web of Science and Embase alongside relevant studies evaluating the prognostic value of CTCs in lung cancer patients. A random-effects model was used for meta-analysis, calculating hazard ratios (HRs), 95% confidence intervals and p-values.
results27 studies enrolling 2957 patients were included. CTC detection indicates poor prognosis, especially in small cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients (overall survival HR 3.11, 95% CI 2.59-3.73) and predicts a worse outcome compared to nonsmall cell lung cancer patients. Epithelial CTCs predict a worse outcome for lung cancer than mesenchymal CTCs or epithelial-mesenchymal hybrids.
conclusionCTCs indicate poor prognosis in patients with primary lung cancer, with CTCs in SCLC having a more pronounced prognostic effect. The prognostic value of CTCs detected by different markers varies; most evidence is available for the strong negative prognostic effect of epithelial CTCs.
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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.