Circulating tumor cells in hepatocellular carcinoma

描述(申请人提供)：我们建议使用一种抗体包被的微流控表面捕获设备，人字形CTC芯片，从静脉血中分离肝细胞癌(HCC)循环肿瘤细胞(CTCs)。成功地从肝细胞癌患者的静脉血中分离出这些细胞，通过对肝细胞癌患者的治疗进行早期检测和监测，有可能极大地改善目前的医疗实践。肝细胞癌的存活率完全依赖于早期发现，无论是发现原发肿瘤还是治疗后复发。筛查、早期诊断和复发检测一直是艰巨的挑战，尽管全球范围内进行了大量研究工作，但肝癌患者的五年存活率仍然很低。我们建议开发和优化用于肝癌CTC分离的CTC芯片(目标1)。然后，我们将确定CTC分析与未知肝脏肿块的活检评估(目标2)相比的诊断准确性。AIM 2的临界值是确定该技术在癌症患者(n=40)和非癌症患者(n=40)中检测肝细胞癌CTCs的敏感性和特异性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to use an antibody-coated microfluidic surface-capture device, the Herringbone CTC-chip, to isolate hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from venous blood. Successful isolation of these cells from the venous blood of HCC patients has the potential to substantially improve current medical practice by enabling early detection and monitoring of therapy in HCC patients. Survival from HCC is entirely dependent on early detection whether its detection of the primary tumor or recurrence after treatment. Screening, early diagnosis and detection of recurrence have been formidable challenges and despite massive worldwide research efforts, the five-year survival rate of HCC patients remains to be poor. We propose to develop and optimize the CTC-chip for HCC CTC isolation (Aim 1). We will then determine the diagnostic accuracy of the CTC analysis compared to biopsy evaluation of unknown liver masses (Aim 2). The critical value of Aim 2 is to determine the sensitivity and the specificity of the technology to detect HCC CTCs in patients with cancer (n=40) and without cancer (n=40).