Detecting Tumor Cells in the Bloodstream

A study has shown that a cellular-based imaging system combined with enrichment and staining techniques detected tumor cells in the blood samples of 76% of metastatic breast cancer patients but detected no false positives. The blood samples contained 100 million or more cells. The data were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in New Orleans (LA, USA).

The study employed the automated cellular imaging system (ACIS) of ChromaVision Medical Systems, Inc. (San Juan Capistrano, CA, USA. This automated microscopy system detects, counts, and classifies cells of clinical interest based on color, size, and shape. The company notes that recent scientific research has documented the biologic significance of carcinoma cells detected in the bone marrow and peripheral blood of breast cancer patients in various stages of disease progression. Detection of free cancer cells in the blood has the potential to be used as a therapeutic monitoring tool and as a tool to screen for multiple cancer types.

"We believe that the ability to detect and quantify tumor cells in the bloodstream will soon become a significant tool in cancer research and detection,” said Douglas S. Harrington, M.D., chairman and CEO of ChromaVision. The company recently completed another pilot study with the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN, USA) involving 92 patients (65 with breast cancer and 28 cancer-free) that produced no false positives.




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