Defining CTCs

Biocept's tests begin with the detection for the presence of Circulating tumor cells(CTCs) in your blood.  CTCs are cells that have detached from a primary tumor and circulate in the bloodstream.   The number of CTC can be very small and are not easily detected.  Circulating tumor cells are found in frequencies in the order of 1-10 CTC per mL of whole blood in patients with metastatic disease.  For comparison, a mL of blood contains a few million white blood cells and a billion red blood cells.  This low frequency means that a key component of methods to detect CTC is the enrichment method offered only by Biocept. 

Importance of CTCs

The capture and detection of CTCs may have important prognostic and therapeutic implications because detection of tumor cells may have clinical utility in risk stratification in early cancer, in early detection of relapse and in monitoring the response to treatment.  The circulating tumor cells appear to have characteristics of tumor cells and may be identified in the peripheral blood of patients with cancer.  Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been found in the circulation of patients with various forms of metastatic carcinomas.  

The presence of tumor cells circulating in the blood is associated with shortened survival from various solid tumor cancers.  Biocept's method to detect circulating tumor cells could help clinicians hoping to predict a patient's chances of survival and/or monitor a patient's response to treatment.  Accurate disease staging is the first step in cancer management.  Many previously unmanageable cancers can now be treated with new therapies if detected in the early stage of the disease.  The most significant are cases with metastatic disease, in which the primary tumor has spread to other organ sites, making treatment and management more complicated. 

Clinical investigators believe that presence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood is an indicator of metastasis.  Methods to recover and analyze such CTCs would enable non-invasive methods of evaluating individual patient’s response to therapy.  Studies confirm the presence and utility of circulating tumor cells as a surrogate for biopsy.