Fig. 3: Improved recovery of spiked tumor cells using DTC-Flow assay.

a Assessment of the percentage of spiked tumor cells successfully recovered using DTC-Flow assay, as compared to samples without pre-enrichment. Average recovery of spiked tumor cells was 93.7 ± 6.1% (mean ± standard deviation, n = 4). b Assessment of spiked tumor cell recovery at 3-log range of spiking levels, with linear regression analysis. c Flow cytometry dot plots demonstrating detection of spiked human breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-453, orange boxed area) in control bone marrow at spiking ratios of 1 tumor cell per 100,000 nucleated bone marrow cells (BMCs) (left panel) or per 1 million BMCs (right panel). d Assessment of DTC-Flow assay performance at low spiking ratios. Spiking ratios shown are tumor cells per given number of nucleated BMCs. e Comparison of spiked tumor cell recovery (1:10,000 spiking ratio) for the DTC-Flow assay as compared to the current standard DTC detection method, consisting of Lymphoprep™-based mononuclear cell isolation followed by IHC detection of cytokeratin expression (CK-IHC). (*p = 0.0221; paired two-tailed t-test, n = 3).