Phenotypic characterization of circulating tumor cells in the peripheral blood of patients with small cell lung cancer

• Published in: PloS one 2017-07, Vol.12 (7), p.e0181211-e0181211
• Main Authors: Messaritakis, Ippokratis, Politaki, Eleni, Kotsakis, Athanasios, Dermitzaki, Eleftheria-Kleio, Koinis, Filippos, Lagoudaki, Eleni, Koutsopoulos, Anastasios, Kallergi, Galatea, Souglakos, John, Georgoulias, Vassilis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Antibodies; Apoptosis; Biology; Biology and Life Sciences; Blood circulation; Breast cancer; Cancer; Cancer cells; Care and treatment; Cell Line, Tumor; Chemotherapy; Diagnosis; Female; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic - drug effects; Genotype & phenotype; Heterogeneity; Humans; Immunofluorescence; Incidence; Ki-67 Antigen - metabolism; Laboratories; Leukocytes, Mononuclear - drug effects; Leukocytes, Mononuclear - metabolism; Leukocytes, Mononuclear - pathology; Lung cancer; Lung diseases; Lung Neoplasms - blood; Lung Neoplasms - drug therapy; Lung Neoplasms - metabolism; Lung Neoplasms - pathology; Lungs; Male; Markers; Medical schools; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mesenchyme; Metastasis; Multivariate analysis; Neoplastic Cells, Circulating - drug effects; Neoplastic Cells, Circulating - pathology; Oncology; Patients; Peripheral blood; Physiological aspects; Radiation therapy; Research and Analysis Methods; Risk factors; Small cell lung cancer; Small cell lung carcinoma; Small Cell Lung Carcinoma - blood; Small Cell Lung Carcinoma - drug therapy; Small Cell Lung Carcinoma - metabolism; Small Cell Lung Carcinoma - pathology; Staining; Subpopulations; Tumor cells; Vimentin; Vimentin - metabolism
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0181211

To evaluate the phenotypic heterogeneity of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) based on the expression of proliferative, apoptotic and Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transmission (EMT) markers during front-line treatment in patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and to evaluate their clinical relevance. CTCs from 108 chemotherapy-naïve patients with SCLC were analyzed by double immunofluorescence staining using anti-Ki67, anti-M30, anti-Vimentin along with anti-CKs antibodies. In 83 patients CTCs were also enumerated using the CellSearch. Sequential samples were available from 76 and 48 patients after one-treatment cycle and on disease progression (PD), respectively, for immunofluorescence and from 50 and 36 patients after one-cycle and on PD, respectively, for CellSearch. At baseline, 60.2% of the patients had detectable CTCs by either method. Both proliferative (CK67+) and non-proliferative (Ki67-), apoptotic (M30+) and non-apoptotic (M30-) as well as EMT (Vim+) CTCs were present in the same patient. Among 22 patients without detectable CTCs by CellSearch, CK+/Ki67+ and CK+/Vim+ CTCs could be detected in 6 (27.3%) and 6 (27.3%) patients, respectively. One-chemotherapy cycle reduced both the incidence of detection (p