Abstract
Pancreatic cancer (PC) is the fourth most common cause of cancer-related death in the USA, primarily due to late presentation coupled with an aggressive biology. The lack of adequate biomarkers for diagnosis and staging confound clinical decision-making and delay potentially effective therapies. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are a promising new biomarker in PC. Preliminary studies have demonstrated their potential clinical utility, and newer CTC isolation platforms have the potential to provide clinicians access to tumor tissue in a reliable, real-time manner. Such a liquid biopsy has been demonstrated in several cancers, and small studies have demonstrated its potential applications in PC. This article reviews the available literature on CTCs as a biomarker in PC and presents the latest innovations in CTC research as well as their potential applications in PC.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1491-1504 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics |
Volume | 15 |
Issue number | 11 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 2 2015 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Keywords
- biomarker
- circulating tumor cells
- diagnosis
- liquid biopsy
- pancreatic cancer
- personalized medicine
- precision medicine
- single cell sequencing
- staging