Capture and Analysis of Circulating Tumor Cells in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma---Analysis of a Pilot Study

摘要

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which we can also call malignant hepatoma, is a primary liver cancer and a major cause of cancer morbidity and mortality all over the world. According to Zhang Y, Li J, Cao L, Xu W, and Yin Z (2012), circulating tumor cells (CTCs) reflect the information of HCC metastasis or recurrence. This makes CTC as a useful biomarker of HCC. The popular standard method based on immunomagnetic binding of epithelial cell adhesion molecules (EpCAMs) cannot be used to collect CTC of HCC because HCC cells rarely express EpCAM. However, Dr. Amir Goldkorn solved this problem by developing a parylene-C slot microfilter platform. So a total of 170 HCC patients are planned to be recruited to analyze CTC in HCC. For now, only 93 patients are enrolled to this program and the study is still in process. The hypothesis in this study to be tested are (1) Patients with advanced disease stage will have more CTCs. (2) The numbers of CTC are decreased after treatment.;Keywords: HCC, CTC.