ReviewPeerJ2025
Clinical significance and heterogeneity of circulating tumor cells and clusters in breast cancer subtypes.
Review in PeerJ, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- The role of Junctional Adhesion Molecule-A (JAM-A) in breast cancer metastasis.Molecular biology reports · 2026Review
- Radiomics and Deep Learning: Bridging Breast Cancer Imaging Phenotypes and Genomic Heterogeneity.Breast cancer (Dove Medical Press) · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The marked heterogeneity of breast cancer results in substantial variations in clinical characteristics, metastatic patterns, and prognosis across molecular subtypes. However, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and circulating tumor cell clusters (CTC clusters), pivotal mediators of metastasis, have not been comprehensively evaluated for their biological characteristics and clinical significance across molecular subtypes. This review synthesizes recent research advancements to comprehensively examine the distribution characteristics, biological functions, and prognostic associations of CTCs and CTC clusters in luminal A, luminal B, HER2-positive breast cancer, and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). It was observed that HER2-positive breast cancer is associated with elevated CTC counts, whereas TNBC, despite lower CTC counts, exhibits CTCs and CTC clusters with enhanced invasiveness and metastatic potential due to Notch1 signaling pathway activation, elevated PD-L1 expression, and desialylation modifications. In luminal subtypes, the scarcity of CTC clusters is linked to a reduced metastatic risk; however, luminal B exhibits a greater propensity for CTC cluster formation than luminal A, suggesting prognostic differences. Clinical data demonstrate that CTC cluster counts are significantly inversely correlated with overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS), and that dynamic monitoring of CTC clusters enables prediction of treatment resistance and recurrence risk. Furthermore, the molecular profiles of 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.