High-risk non-metastatic prostate cancer (PCa) has the potential to progress into lethal disease. Treatment options are manifold but, given a lack of surrogate biomarkers, it remains unclear which treatment offers the best results. Several studies have reported circulating tumor cells (CTCs) to be a prognostic biomarker in metastatic PCa. However, few reports on CTCs in high-risk non-metastatic PCa are available. Herein, we evaluated CTC detection in high-risk non-metastatic PCa patients using the in vivo CellCollector CANCER01 (DC01) and CellSearch system. CTC counts were analyzed and compared before and after radiotherapy (two sampling time points) in 51 high-risk non-metastatic PCa patients and were further compared according to isolation technique; further, CTC counts were correlated to clinical features. Use of DC01 resulted in a significantly higher percentage of CTC-positive samples compared to CellSearch (33.7% vs. 18.6%; p = 0.024) and yielded significantly higher CTC numbers (range: 0-15 vs. 0-5; p = 0.006). Matched pair analysis of samples between two sampling time points showed no difference in CTC counts determined by both techniques. CTC counts were not correlated with clinicopathological features. In vivo enrichment using DC01 has the potential to detect CTC at a higher efficiency compared to CellSearch, suggesting that CTC is a suitable biomarker in high-risk non-metastatic PCa.
Cancers. 2019 Jul 03*** epublish ***
Shukun Chen, Gerlinde Tauber, Tanja Langsenlehner, Linda Maria Schmölzer, Michaela Pötscher, Sabine Riethdorf, Andra Kuske, Gerd Leitinger, Karl Kashofer, Zbigniew T Czyż, Bernhard Polzer, Klaus Pantel, Peter Sedlmayr, Thomas Kroneis, Amin El-Heliebi
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China., Department of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, Medical University of Graz, 8036 Graz, Austria., Institute of Tumor Biology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany., Department of Cell Biology, Histology and Embryology, Gottfried Schatz Research Center, Medical University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria., Diagnostic and Research Institute of Pathology, Medical University Graz, 8036 Graz, Austria., Division Personalized Tumor Therapy, Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine, 93053 Regensburg, Germany., Department of Cell Biology, Histology and Embryology, Gottfried Schatz Research Center, Medical University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria. .