Analyzing Blood to Detect Cancer

A new system aids the processing and analysis of blood samples to detect cancer cells. Data from early studies is being presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cancer Research (AACR) in New Orleans.

The system seeks to find tumor cells of epithelial origin. Epithelial cells are separated from blood by magnetic means and fluorescent probes are then used to differentially label the separated cells. Reproducibility of the system was demonstrated by processing 50 blood samples from normal donors with a mean control cell recovery of 77% and a coefficient of variation of 7.4%. Tumor cells were detected in 8 of 12 blood samples from patients with breast cancer.

Tumor cells are often present in the blood of carcinoma patients at low frequency but such cells may provide clinically useful information. However, the laborious manual procedures now required to detect and quantify the presence of circulating tumor cells in blood samples introduce a high level of variability in the results and reduce sensitivity, says Immunicon Corp. (Huntingdon Valley, PA, USA), which developed the new system.

"This system will permit us to carry out well-controlled clinical studies in support of our view that the analysis of circulating epithelial cells in the blood of patients may represent an important new approach for the diagnosis, staging, and monitoring of cancer,” said Leon Terstappen, M.D., senior vice president of R&D for Immunicon.



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