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Updated: Apr 20, 2026
3-D Cell Culture System for Studying Invasion and Evaluating Therapeutics in Bladder Cancer
Published on: September 13, 2018
In vitro culturing of viable circulating tumor cells of urinary bladder cancer
Martin Cegan1, Katarina Kolostova2, Rafal Matkowski3
1Department of Pathology, Masaryk's Hospital in Usti Nad Labem Krajska Zdravotni a.s., Socialni Pece 3316, 12A40113 Usti Nad Labem, Czech Republic.
Objective:
Approximately one third of patients diagnosed with muscle-invasive urinary bladder cancer (UBC) have undetected metastases at the time of treatment of the primary tumor. Currently there are no reliable specific serum markers for monitoring and evaluating risk profiles of urothelial cancers. Several studies suggest that detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) may correlate with the disease status and prognosis at baseline and early in the treatment of cancers. In this study a new way of isolation and in vitro cultivation of CTCs of urinary bladder cancer was introduced.
Materials And Methods:
Peripheral blood (PB) samples from 53 patients who had undergone urological procedure were evaluated using the MetaCell device (MetaCell s.r.o., Ostrava, Czech Republic). The patients enrolled in the study were both oncological patients with UBC and non-oncological patients with inflammation (14 patients). The sensitivity and quantification of CTCs were evaluated. The separated CTCs were cultured in vitro.
Results:
39 patients with confirmed UBC were enrolled in the study. CTCs were detected in 25 (64%) patients, and most of these patients had between 6 and 10 cells. The separated CTCs were successfully cultured in vitro.
Conclusion:
CTCs were detected in a higher percentage of patients than in other studies. This paper describes the first successful culturing of human UBC cells. The MetaCell approach used in this study enabled the capture of viable intact virgin CTCs (virgin CTC) suitable for next in vitro culturing, single cell analysis or drug testing.
