A comparison of CellCollector with CellSearch in patients with neuroendocrine tumours
- D Mandair1,2,
- C Vesely1,
- L Ensell1,
- H Lowe1,
- V Spanswick1,
- J A Hartley1,
- M E Caplin2 and
- T Meyer1,2⇑
- 1UCL Cancer Institute, University College London, London, UK
- 2Neuroendocrine Tumour Unit, Royal Free Hospital, London, UK
- (Correspondence should be addressed to T Meyer; email: t.meyer{at}ucl.ac.uk)
Dear Editor,
Circulating tumour cells (CTCs) have been hypothesised to be mediators of metastases (Fidler et al. 2003) but with numbers as low as 1/107 white cells (Alunni-Fabbroni & Sandri 2010), their utility as biomarkers has been limited by low rates of detection and isolation. CTCs have been identified in patients with metastatic neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) using the FDA-cleared CellSearch (Janssen Diagnostics) technology, a semi-automated platform that uses immunomagnetic enrichment of CTCs based on expression of epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) (Khan et al. 2011). Using this platform, CTCs were found in 36% of patients with pancreatic NETs and 53% of those with midgut NETs. The presence of CTCs is associated with a worse overall survival, and early changes in CTC number after treatment in NET patients are also prognostic (Khan et al. 2013, 2016). CTCs may also be considered as ‘liquid biopsies’, offering the opportunity to interrogate the molecular characteristics of the tumour. For such an approach to be broadly applicable, alternative technologies are required to increase number of CTCs isolated and the proportion of patients in whom they can be detected.
The CellCollector (GILUPI GmbH, Potsdam, Germany) is a novel medical device consisting of a 160 mm sterile steel wire of which the terminal 20 mm is coated with anti-EpCAM antibodies covalently coupled to a gold and hydrogel layer. The CellCollector is inserted into a peripheral vein enabling the circulating blood volume …
