Circulating tumor cells (CTC) are all kinds of tumor cells in peripheral blood. Due to spontaneous or diagnostic reasons, most of CTC falls off from solid tumor focus (primary focus and metastatic focus), and after entering peripheral blood, most of CTC dies or is swallowed, and a few can escape and anchor to develop into metastatic focus, which increases the death risk of malignant tumor patients.
Extended data:
CTC detection can not only provide prognosis prediction, recurrence risk assessment and curative effect monitoring, but also reflect the genetic information of patients' tumors and guide individualized medication.
At present, targeted therapy has become the main means of malignant tumor treatment. Targeted therapeutic drugs act on specific target genes, and their efficacy is closely related to the genetic information of tumor patients. Therefore, patients must undergo a series of genetic tests before receiving targeted drug therapy, and adopt different treatment schemes and implement individualized treatment according to the genetic characteristics of patients.
CTC is a kind of tumor cell, which is free from patients' blood and carries all the genes of tumor, so it can be used as a sample for gene detection. By analyzing the gene of CTC, CTC analysis can reflect the gene status of tumor in real time, clearly guide patients to choose drugs in the next step, and improve the treatment effect.
References:
Baidu encyclopedia-CTC