An ultrasensitive tumor enriched flow-cytometric assay for detection of isolated tumor cells in bone marrow of patients with breast cancer

• Published in: The American journal of surgery Vol. 184; no. 5; pp. 414 - 417
• Main Authors: Cabioglu, Neslihan, Igci, Abdullah, Yildirim, Engin O, Aktas, Esin, Bilgic, Sema, Yavuz, Ekrem, Muslumanoglu, Mahmut, Bozfakioglu, Yavuz, Kecer, Mustafa, Ozmen, Vahit, Deniz, Gunnur
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.11.2002; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Antibodies, Monoclonal; Bone marrow; Bone Marrow Neoplasms - diagnosis; Bone Marrow Neoplasms - secondary; Breast; Breast cancer; Breast Neoplasms - genetics; Breast Neoplasms - pathology; Cytokeratin; Enrichment; Epithelial cells; Epithelium; Feasibility Studies; Female; Flow cytometry; Flow Cytometry - methods; Humans; Immunomagnetic enrichment; Immunomagnetic Separation; Isolated tumor cells; Keratins - analysis; Medical prognosis; Metastasis; Microspheres; Middle Aged; Monoclonal antibodies; Morphology; Nanoparticles; Neoplastic Cells, Circulating; Patients; Physical characteristics; Sensitivity and Specificity; Surgery; Tumor cells; Tumor Cells, Cultured; Tumors; Istanbul Turkey; Turkey; California; United States > US; Immunomagnetic enrichment; Breast; Isolated tumor cells; Flow-cytometry
• ISSN: 0002-9610; 1879-1883
• DOI: 10.1016/S0002-9610(02)01015-2

An ultrasensitive tumor enriched flow-cytometric assay was used to determine its feasibility in detection of isolated tumor cells (ITC) in bone marrow (BM) of patients with breast cancer. Epithelial cells were removed by magnetic microbeads conjugated with an anti-cytokeratin 7/8 monoclonal antibody to enrich tumor cells in BM samples. A specific gate for MCF-7 breast cancer cells (gate MCF-7 cells) was also taken into consideration in addition to a gate including all enriched BM cells (gate enriched BM cells) in flow-cytometric analysis to enhance the specificity of the method. Nineteen patients with stage I/II were evaluated. Ten patients (53%) were found to have cytokeratin positive (CK +) cells according to the gate enriched BM cells whereas 6 patients (32%) had CK + cells when the gate MCF-7 cells was taken into account. New strategies in nonmorphological ultrasensitive techniques might be useful to categorize patients with ITCs having different tumor morphology and characteristics.