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Published on: August 24, 2017
Molecular detection of circulating esophageal squamous cell cancer cells in the peripheral blood
Masahiko Koike1, Kenji Hibi, Yasushi Kasai
1Second Department of Surgery, Nagoya University School of Medicine, Nagoya 466-8550, Japan.
Purpose And Experimental Design:
To detect surgically resectable tumors earlier and improve the prognosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients, we examined deltaNp63 expression that was specific for squamous cell carcinoma in blood samples obtained from 43 esophageal cancer patients.
Results:
Seventeen of 33 (52%) patients with primary esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and 6 of 10 (60%) patients with postoperative recurrent squamous cell carcinoma had detectable deltaNp63 expression in their peripheral blood using deltaNp63-specific reverse transcription-PCR. Furthermore, deltaNp63 is a more sensitive marker compared with other commonly used tumor markers such as squamous cell carcinoma-associated antigen and carcinoembryonic antigen.
Conclusions:
This approach would be potentially useful for the monitoring of patients with this aggressive disease.
