Detection of brain tumor cells in the peripheral blood by a telomerase promoter-based assay
Menée in vitro, in vivo et sur un petit nombre de patients, cette étude évalue les performances d'une technique, basée sur la mesure de l'activité de la télomérase, pour détecter des cellules tumorales circulantes chez les patients atteints d'une tumeur cérébrale et suivre la réponse à une radiothérapie
Blood tests to detect circulating tumor cells (CTC) offer great potential to monitor disease status, gauge prognosis and guide treatment decisions for cancer patients. For patients with brain tumors, such as aggressive glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), CTC assays are needed that do not rely on expression of cancer cell surface biomarkers like EpCAM that brain tumors tend to lack. Here we describe a strategy to detect CTC based on telomerase activity, which is elevated in nearly all tumor cells but not normal cells. This strategy utilizes an adenoviral detection system system that is shown to successfully detect CTC in patients with brain tumors. Clinical data suggest that this assay might assist interpretation of treatment response in patients receiving radiation therapy, for example, to differentiate pseudoprogression from true tumor progression. These results support further development of this assay as a generalized method to detect CTC in cancer patients.
Cancer Research , résumé, 2014