Detection of circulating breast cancer cells by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)

The confounding problem in treatment of breast cancer is the metastasis of breast tumour. Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) has been recently used in the detection of circulating breast cancer cells. Th is review reports on the development of this assay as well as its advantage s and disadvantages. We feel that cytokeratin 20 and beta -human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) mRNA are the best markers for the detection of circulati ng boast cancer cells. We suggest that the multiple RNA marker RT-PCR assay can help to increase both sensitivity and specificity of detection, and th at quantitative RT-PCR assay is more effective than the qualitative assay i n the detection of circulating breast cancer cells. (C) 2000 Harcourt Publi shers Ltd.