Circulating tumor cell status monitors the treatment responses in breast cancer patients: a meta-analysis

• Published in: Scientific reports 2017-03, Vol.7 (1), p.43464-43464, Article 43464
• Main Authors: Yan, Wen-Ting, Cui, Xiang, Chen, Qing, Li, Ya-Fei, Cui, You-Hong, Wang, Yan, Jiang, Jun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 631/67/1347; 692/4028/67/1347; Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols - therapeutic use; Biomarkers, Tumor - genetics; Biomarkers, Tumor - metabolism; Breast cancer; Breast Neoplasms - diagnosis; Breast Neoplasms - drug therapy; Breast Neoplasms - genetics; Breast Neoplasms - mortality; Disease Progression; ErbB-2 protein; Female; Gene Expression; Heterogeneity; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Meta-analysis; Metastases; Monitoring, Physiologic; multidisciplinary; Neoadjuvant Therapy - methods; Neoplastic Cells, Circulating - drug effects; Neoplastic Cells, Circulating - pathology; Odds Ratio; Prognosis; Receptor, ErbB-2 - genetics; Receptor, ErbB-2 - metabolism; Risk Factors; Science; Surgery; Survival; Survival Analysis; Tumor cells
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep43464

Whether circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can be used as an indicator of treatment response in breast cancer (BC) needs to be clarified. We addressed this issue by a meta-analysis. PubMed, EMBase and Cochrane library databases were searched in June 2016. Effect measures were estimated as pooled risk ratio (RR), odds ratio (OR) or mean difference by fixed- or random-effect models, according to heterogeneity of included studies. In total, 50 studies with 6712 patients were recruited. Overall analysis showed that there was a significant reduction of CTC-positive rate (RR = 0.68, 95% CI: 0.61–0.76, P