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Updated: Mar 17, 2026
Gene Regulation and Targeted Therapy in Gastric Cancer Peritoneal Metastasis: Radiological Findings from Dual Energy CT and PET/CT
Published on: January 22, 2018
High circulating tumor cell concentrations in a specific subtype of gastric cancer with diffuse bone metastasis at
Kazuhiro Shimazu1, Koji Fukuda1, Taichi Yoshida1
1Kazuhiro Shimazu, Koji Fukuda, Taichi Yoshida, Masahiro Inoue, Hiroyuki Shibata, Department of Clinical Oncology, Graduate School of Medicine, Akita University, Akita 0108543, Japan.
Aim:
To clarify the biological feature contributing to gastric cancer with diffuse bone metastases at diagnosis.
Methods:
The participants visited the Department of Clinical Oncology, Akita University Hospital, from January 2014 to August 2015. The selection criterion for gastric cancer with diffuse bone metastases at diagnosis includes over 29 hot spots of bone scintigraphy. Circulating tumor cell were collected from 20 mL of peripheral venous blood drawn using a CellSearch kit and a CellTracks AutoPrep system by SRL, a clinical laboratory. The endpoints of this study were correlations between circulating tumor cells (CTC) count and therapeutic outcomes.
Results:
Among 39 patients with gastric cancer, 5 patients met the criterion. The incidence of this subtype was 12.8%. CTC counts ranged from 235 to 6440 cells/7.5 mL of peripheral blood (median of 1724). These values were much higher than common gastric cancers (2 cells). In chemo-sensitive cases, CTC counts decreased within 14 d (median) from 275, 235 and 1724 to 2, 7 and 66, respectively. On the other hand, CTC counts increased after treatment failure or insensitive case from 2, 7 and 6440 to 787, 513 and 7885, respectively. The correlation between CTC count and survival time showed a trend, but did not reach significance (Y = 234.6 - 0.03X, P = 0.085).
Conclusion:
High CTC count is a biological hallmark of this subtype, and can be used as a direct and definitive indicator of therapeutic outcome.
