Figure 3.

CTC count correlated with pathological stage. Pathological stage was determined by a pathologist at the Samsung Medical Center (Seoul, Korea) from tissue biopsies. Subsequent to the blood draw, the cells were processed directly using the proposed platform, and the collected cells were immunofluorescently stained with an anti-human protein tyrosine phosphatase, receptor type C, CD45 mAb and an anti-human epithelial cell adhesion molecule, EpCAM mAb, as well as DAPI. All DAPI-positive, CD45-negative and EpCAM-positive cells were counted under a fluorescence microscope. Data are presented as the CTC numbers from 5 ml blood samples. Stage I, n=37; stage II, n=16; stage III, n=13; stage IV, n=16; C, n=20. CTC, circulating tumor cell; mAb, monoclonal antibody; C, healthy donors.