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Updated: Jun 24, 2025
Clinical Microfluidic Chip Platform for the Isolation of Versatile Circulating Tumor Cells
Published on: October 13, 2023
High-throughput viable circulating tumor cell isolation using tapered-slit membrane filter-based chipsets in the
Nam Kyeong Kim1,2, Dong Hoon Suh1,2, Kidong Kim1,2
1Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Objective:
To evaluate the diagnostic performance of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) using tapered-slit membrane filter (TSF)-based chipsets for the differential diagnosis of adnexal tumors.
Methods:
A total of 230 women with indeterminate adnexal tumors were prospectively enrolled. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the CTC-detecting chipsets were analyzed according to postoperative pathological results and compared with those of cancer antigen (CA)-125 and imaging tests.
Results:
Eighty-one (40.3%) benign tumors, 31 (15.4%) borderline tumors, and 89 (44.3%) ovarian cancers were pathologically confirmed. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of CTC-detecting chipsets (75.3%, 58.0%, and 67.1%) for differentiating ovarian cancer from benign tumors were similar to CA-125 (78.7%, 53.1%, and 66.5%), but lower than CT/MRI (94.2%, 77.9%, and 86.5%). "CTC or CA125" showed increased sensitivity (91.0%) and "CTC and CA-125" revealed increased specificity (77.8%), comparable to CT/MRI. CTC detection rates in stage I/II and stage III/IV ovarian cancers were 69.6% and 81.4%, respectively. The sensitivity to detect high-grade serous (HGS) cancer from benign tumors (84.6%) was higher than that to detect non-HGS cancers (68.0%).
Conclusion:
Although the diagnostic performance of the TSF platform to differentiate between ovarian cancer and benign tumors did not yield significant results, the combination of CTC and CA-125 showed promising potential in the diagnostic accuracy of ovarian cancer.
