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PMID: 19664291 Published · ppublish English Comparative Study Journal Article

Detection and characterization of circulating tumor cells in blood of primary breast cancer patients by RT-PCR and comparison to status of bone marrow disseminated cells.

Breast cancer research : BCR ·Vol. 11 ·No. 4 ·2009-00-00 ·Pages R59

Fehm T, Hoffmann O, Aktas B, Becker S, Solomayer EF, Wallwiener D, Kimmig R, Kasimir-Bauer S

Abstract

The role of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in blood of primary breast cancer patients is still under investigation. We evaluated the incidence of CTCs in blood, we evaluated the correlation between CTCs and disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) in the bone marrow (BM), and we characterized CTCs for the expression of HER2, the estrogen receptor (ER) and the progesterone receptor (PR). Blood of 431 patients with primary breast cancer were analyzed for EpCAM, MUC1 and HER2 transcripts with the AdnaTest BreastCancer (AdnaGen AG, Germany). Expression of the ER and PR was assessed in an additional RT-PCR. BM aspirates from 414 patients were analyzed for DTCs by immunocytochemistry using the pan-cytokeratin antibody A45-B/B3. DTCs were found in 107/414 patients (24%), CTCs were detected in 58/431 (13%) patients. DTCs were associated with PR status of the primary tumor (P = 0.04) and CTCs significantly correlated with nodal status (P = 0.04), ER (P = 0.05), and PR (P = 0.01). DTCs in the BM weakly correlated with CTCs (P = 0.05) in blood. Interestingly, the spread of CTCs was mostly found in triple-negative tumors (P = 0.01) and CTCs in general were mostly found to be triple-negative regardless of the ER, PR and HER2 status of the primary tumor. (1) Due to the weak concordance between CTCs and DTCs the clinical relevance may be different. (2) The biology of the primary tumor seems to direct the spread of CTCs. (3) Since the expression profile between CTCs and the primary tumor differs, the consequence for the selection of adjuvant treatment has to be evaluated.

MeSH Terms
Adenocarcinoma/blood,pathology Antigens, Neoplasm/analysis Biomarkers, Tumor/analysis Bone Marrow/pathology Bone Marrow Neoplasms/secondary,ultrastructure Breast Neoplasms/blood,chemistry,drug therapy,pathology Cell Adhesion Molecules/analysis Chemotherapy, Adjuvant Epithelial Cell Adhesion Molecule Estrogens Female Humans Keratins/analysis Mucin-1/analysis Neoplasm Proteins/analysis Neoplasm, Residual Neoplasms, Hormone-Dependent/blood,chemistry,pathology Neoplastic Cells, Circulating/chemistry Neoplastic Stem Cells/chemistry Progesterone Receptor, ErbB-2/analysis Receptors, Estrogen/analysis Receptors, Progesterone/analysis Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
Chemicals
Antigens, Neoplasm Biomarkers, Tumor Cell Adhesion Molecules EPCAM protein, human Epithelial Cell Adhesion Molecule Estrogens MUC1 protein, human Mucin-1 Neoplasm Proteins Receptors, Estrogen Receptors, Progesterone Progesterone Keratins ERBB2 protein, human Receptor, ErbB-2
Authors & Affiliations
8 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Fehm Tanja
Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Calwer Strasse 7, University Hospital of Tuebingen, D-72076 Tuebingen, Germany. tanja.fehm@med.uni-tuebingen.de
Hoffmann Oliver
Aktas Bahriye
Becker Sven
Solomayer Erich F
Wallwiener Diethelm
Kimmig Rainer
Kasimir-Bauer Sabine
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Article Info
Journal
Breast cancer research : BCR
Abbr.
Breast Cancer Res
ISSN
1465-542X
DOI
10.1186/bcr2349
Email
tanja.fehm@med.uni-tuebingen.de
Published
2009-00-00
Epub
2009-00-10
Pages
R59
Language
English
Region
England
NLM ID
100927353
PMCID
PMC2750121
Subset
IM
Corrections
CommentIn
PMID: 19833005
CommentIn
PMID: 20584343
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1186/bcr2349 PMC Full Text View journal details
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