Table 1.

CTC isolation techniques.

CTC isolation method	Disease	Comment	References
Size-based filtration method: Use of membrane filters with size exclusive pores	Multiple carcinomas	Isolation of CTCs based on cell size to isolate them from leukocytes	Vona et al., 2000, 2004; Hosokawa et al., 2013
Veridex cell search system: Anti-EpCAM antibody coated microbeads	Multiple carcinomas	The only FDA approved	Allard et al., 2004
Magnetic-activated cell sorting system (MACS)	Breast cancer	Enrichment of the CTC population	Lara et al., 2004
Use of electrical charges and density properties of cancer cells	Primary breast cancer	CTCs detected in 8.3% of patients before surgery. After Chemotherapy, CTCs detected in 44% of previously negative patients	Müller et al., 2005
Cell Search System	Gastro-intestinal cancers	High CTC number corrected with metastasis and with low survival	Hiraiwa et al., 2008
MagSweeper: Magnetic rods	Metastatic breast cancer	Higher purity than the Cell search system	Talasaz et al., 2009
Microfluidic devices: Microfluid approaches taking advantage of physical properties	Metastatic prostate cancer	Isolate CTC with down regulated EpCAM	Stott et al., 2010; Ozkumur et al., 2013
Combination of epithelial and mesenchymal markers: Use combination of antibodies to select CTC with epithelial and mesenchymal properties	Localized and metastatic colorectal cancer	Avoid CTC phenotype problem	Deneve et al., 2013
MINDEC: Multi-Marker Immuno-magnetic Negative Depletion Enrichment	Metastatic pancreatic cancer	Enhanced negative depletion strategy—MINDEC-based on multi-marker (CD45, CD16, CD19, CD163, and CD235a/GYPA) depletion of blood cells	Lapin et al., 2016
GILUPI cell collector: cell Collector-Wire coating: EpCAM and Cytokeratin antibody coated medical wire	Lung cancer	Isolation of CTCs from peripheral blood to overcome the blood volume limitations	Gorges et al., 2016b
Wire coating enhanced: Enhanced wire coting to maximize functionality	Breast cancer cells	Improvement of the wire technology	Scherag et al., 2017