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Warawdekar et al. CTCs from patients with metastatic breast cancer

Figure 6: Images of captured CTCs from blood sample of a patient with breast cancer. CTCs are positive for EpCAM and CK with the
presence of a well-defined nucleus and negative for the common leucocyte antigen CD45. CTCs: circulating tumor cells; CK: cytokeratin

leucocyte antigen, CD45. Immunophenotyping and viable and feasible protocols become an essential
imaging further confirmed the presence of CTCs in requisite.
samples.
Financial support and sponsorship
Determination by quantitative RT-PCR for CK 19, None.
EpCAM, and MUC-1 in the enriched fraction was also
a specific approach which was applied in validating Conflicts of interest
CTCs numbers obtained by flow cytometry. Further, There are no conflicts of interest.
to overcome representation of results as expression
in relative fold and to show absolute quantitation, Patient consent
the Strati et al. and Aerts et al. methods were The patient consent was obtained for all patients
[23]
[22]
adapted. These methods can overcome differences participating in this study.
in expression of the selected genes across samples,
estimate the quantities as copies/mL in blood samples, Ethics approval
and enable direct comparison of samples across time Blood samples collected were from an approved study
points of collection. and all the human subjects participating in the study
have given the required informed consent.
Sixty-four percent of patient samples showed
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32 Journal of Cancer Metastasis and Treatment ¦ Volume 3 ¦ February 23, 2017