Table 1.
Selected CTC Characterization Methods
| Method name | Developer (location) | Target cancer | Antibody against | Reference | Evidence level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AdnaTest | AdnaGen (Langenhagen, Germany) | Breast, prostate, and colon | EpCAM and MUC1 | 39 | |
| autoMACS/MACS | MitenyiBiotec (BergischGladbach, Germany) | EpCAM, pan-CK, HER2/neu, or CD4 | 40 | ||
| Biofluidica | (Chapel Hill, NC) | Pancreatic, prostate, lung, breast, and colorectal | EpCAM | 41 | |
| CellSearch | Veridex, Johnson & Johnson | Metastatic breast, colon, prostate, lung, melanoma, and urothelial | EpCAM | 42 | FDA cleared, many clinical trials |
| ClearCell System | ClearbridgeBiomedics (Singapore) | Breast | Presented at ASCO 2014 | ||
| CTC iChip | Daniel Haber and Mehmet Toner, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, MA) | Breast, colon, lung, prostate, and pancreas | EpCAM and CD45/cytokeratin subtraction | 43 | FDA IDE |
| Dynabeads methods | Invitrogen (Carlsbad, CA, and Heidelberg, Germany) | Colorectal cancer | EpCAM and CD45 subtraction | 44 | |
| ISET | Metagenex (Paris, France) | Melanoma, mesothelioma, and NSCLC | Size (no antibody) | 45 | NCT01776385 for mesothelioma and NCT00818558 for NSCLC |
| IsoFlux Rare Cell Access System | Fluxion Biosciences (San Francisco, CA) | NSCLC and melanoma | 46 | ||
| Lymphoprep (Ficoll-Isopaque) | Axis-Shield PoC (Oslo, Norway) | Prostate | EpCAM, PSA, and cytokeratin 7/8 | 47 | |
| MagSweeper | Stephanie Jeffrey and Ronald W. Davis (Stanford University, Stanford, CA) | Breast and prostate | EpCAM | 48 | |
| Nanodetector | Gilupi (Potsdam, Germany) | Breast, lung, and prostate | EpCAM | 49 | |
| Negative enrichment QMS | Jeffrey Chalmers (Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH) | Head and neck and breast | CD45 subtraction | 50 | |
| OncoQuick | Greiner Bio-One (Germany and Monroe, NC) | Breast, colorectal, melanoma, and pancreatic | Density (no antibody) | 51 | |
| RoboSep/EasySep | Stem Cell Technologies (Vancouver, BC, Canada) | Myeloma | CD33, CD66, and CD138 | 52 | |
| ScreenCellCyto | ScreenCell Company (Sarcelles, France) | Lung and cell lines | Size (no antibody) | 53 |
This table is an updated version of Table 2 first published by Parkinson et al.54
ASCO, American Society of Clinical Oncology; CK, cytokeratin; CTC, circulating tumor cell; EpCAM, epithelial cell adhesion molecule; FDA, Food and Drug Administration; iChip, microfluidic silicon chip; IDE, investigational device exemption; ISET, isolation by size of epithelial tumor cell; MACS, magnetic activated cell sorting; NSCLC, non-small cell lung cancer; PSA, prostate-specific antigen; QMS, quadruple magnetic sorter.