Circulating @entity5 Cells in Metastatic XXXX : A Prognostic and Predictive Marker.

@entity5 @entity1 @entity0
UNASSIGNED: The role of circulating @entity5 cells (CTCs) as a marker for disease progression in @entity5 is controversial. The current review will serve to summarize the evidence on CTCs as a marker of disease progression in @entity1 with metastatic @entity0 . The immunohistochemistry(IHC)-based CellSearch(  ) is the only FDA-approved isolation technique for quantifying CTCs in @entity1 with metastatic @entity0 . We searched PubMed and Web of Knowledge for clinical studies that assessed the prognostic and predictive value of CTCs using IHC-based isolation. The @entity1 outcomes reported include median and Cox-proportional hazard ratios for overall-survival (OS) and progression-free-survival (PFS). All studies reported shorter OS for CTC-positive @entity1 versus CTC-negative. A subset of the selected trials reported significant lower median PFS for CTC-positive @entity1 . The reported trials support the utility of CTC enumeration for @entity1 prognosis. But further studies are required to determine the utility of CTC enumeration for guiding @entity1 therapy. There are three clinical trials ongoing to test this hypothesis. These studies, and others, will further establish the role of CTCs in clinical practice.
