Circulating tumor cells!
Primary tumors or metastatic tumors release circulating tumor cells (CTCs) into the bloodstream, which can be used for cancer monitoring for clinical applications.
CTCs could be used for assessing tumor heterogeneity, guiding protein biomarker driven cancer immune therapies, and assessing heterogeneous drug resistance, as well as for detecting minimal disease.
New rare cell capture technologies that can process larger blood volumes and enable advanced single-cell analyses may enhance the range and potential of CTC-based biomarkers.
The authors in this review discuss recent advances in the study of rare circulating cancer cells and discuss current limitations and future directions.
https://www.cell.com/cancer-cell/fulltext/S1535-6108(25)00314-9
