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Updated: Oct 10, 2025
Clinical Microfluidic Chip Platform for the Isolation of Versatile Circulating Tumor Cells
Published on: October 13, 2023
Discovery and characterization of circulating tumor cell clusters in neuroendocrine tumor patients using
Na Sun1, Yingying Yang2, Hui Miao2
1California NanoSystems Institute, Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging, Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States; Key Laboratory for Nano-Bio Interface, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou, 215123, PR China.
Abstract:
Circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters are present in cancer patients with severe metastasis, resulting in poor clinical outcomes. However, CTC clusters have not been studied as extensively as single CTCs, and the clinical utility of CTC clusters remains largely unknown. In this study, we aim sought to explore the feasibility of NanoVelcro Chips to simultaneously detect both single CTCs and CTC clusters with negligible perturbation to their intrinsic properties in neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). We discovered frequent CTC clusters in patients with advanced NETs and examined their potential roles, together with single NET CTCs, as novel biomarkers of patient response following peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT). We observed dynamic changes in both total NET CTCs and NET CTC cluster counts in NET patients undergoing PRRT which correlated with clinical outcome. These preliminary findings suggest that CTC clusters, along with single CTCs, offer a potential non-invasive option to monitor the treatment response in NET patients undergoing PRRT.
