Table 1 Several examples of instruments in use for detection and analysis of CTCs
From: Circulating tumor cells: quintessential precision oncology presenting challenges for biology
Instrument | Primary method for CTC detection | Secondary method for CTC detection | Advantages or disadvantages | Notes | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CellSearch | Polymer-coated magnetic nanoparticles conjugated with EpCAM | Magnetic bead separation followed by immunofluorescence microscopy for cytokeratins and other markers | Advantage—93% CTC recovery, 1 cell/7.5 ml of blood Disadvantage—cells must be permeabilized | FDA cleared | Crowley et al.3 |
CytoTrack | Immunostaining cells on a “Cytodisc” | Scoring of “Cytodisc” by visual inspection | Visual inspection can be both an advantage and disadvantage | Gives similar results to the “CellSearch” device | Hillig et al.10 |
Screen Cell | Cell size: filtration of CTCs with the Screen Cell device | Captured cells are ready for cell culture, immunostaining or molecular biology | Advantage—CTCs are available for live cell in vitro methods | Potential for in vitro functional analysis | Desitter et al.11 |
Viatar CTC Solutions | Oncopheresis (dialysis) CTCs are the least deformable peripheral blood cells | Downstream detection of immunoreactive cells | Advantage—can collect more live cells than other methods Disadvantage—requires 4 h of machine dialysis | Undergoing human clinical trials, potential removal of metastatic cells | Coumans et al.12 |
Viator Technologies | Photoaccoustic detection | Detection and quantitation of CTCs | Advantage—works well for pigmented cells such as melanoma or with gold nanoparticle tagged CTCs | Selection is independent of immune-reactivity | Obrien et al.13 |
Micro-Hall detector | Micro fluidics together with immunomagentic detection of cancer stem cell therapeutic targets | Downstream profiling of single cells | Advantage—high throughput, high sensitivity | ~ 50 times more sensitive than CellSearch | Issadore et al.14 |
