Blood-borne cancer cells - Quo vadis?

The detection of blood-bonze cancer cells may help in clinical staging and further understanding of cancer metastasis. We developed a cytokeratin-base d immunomagnetic method to isolate epithelium-derived cells frorn the circr rlatlng blood ofpatients. The number of cell clusters positive for cytokera tin/prostate-specific antigen (PSA) fr om the peripheral blood of prostate cancer patients and cytokeratin/p138(c-erbB-2) from the peripheral blood of breast cancer patients has been related to stage of the disease. Breast ca ncer patients who presented cytokeratin/p185(c-erbB-2) positive cell cluste rs showed a decrease in such cells under adriamycin adjuvant therapy with F urther molecular characterization by a highly sensitive microsatellite mult iplex-PCR enabled reproducible detection of microsatellite alterations. The impact of these individually targeted results may contribute to art indivi dual diagnostic and therapeutic strategy.