. 2016 Jul 21;2(2):109–116. doi: 10.1016/j.wjorl.2016.05.003

Table 1.

Summary of head and neck CTC studies.

Study	N	Study design	Treatment population (stage)	Method of detection	When CTCs measured	Range CTCs	Marker	% With CTCs	Mean Follow-up, months	Outcome (+)CTC: (−) CTC	Other outcomes
Wirtshafter et al (2002)¹⁴	18	Prospective	Ⅰ–Ⅳ	Positive Selection ICC	Before treatment	0–3	EpCAM	44%	N/A	Outcomes not examined
Partridge et al (2003)³⁴	36	Prospective	Ⅰ–Ⅳ	Negative Depletion ICC and RT-PCR	Before, after surgery	0–5	Pan-CK, E48	50%	36	Reduced DFS	Poor agreement between RT-PCR and ICC
Winter et al (2009)³⁵	16	Prospective	Ⅰ–Ⅳ	RT-PCR	Before, after surgery	N/A	EGFR, CK, ELF3, Eph84	63%	N/A	No difference
Jatana et al (2010)²⁶	48	Prospective	Ⅰ–Ⅳ	Negative Depletion ICC	Before treatment	0–3300	CK	71%	19	Reduced DFS
Hristozova et al (2011)²⁹	42	Prospective	LR advanced	Flow cytometry and RT-PCR	Before treatment	0–4	EpCAM, CK	43%	N/A	Assoc with ≥N2b disease	Decrease in CTC with chemoradiation
Nichols et al (2011)²⁴	15	Prospective	Ⅲ–Ⅳ	CellSearch (Positive Selection ICC)	Before treatment	0–2	EpCAM	40%	N/A	CTC presence assoc. with lung nodules >1 cm; reduced survival
Buglione et al (2012)²³	73	Prospective	HNSCC and SNUC (Ⅰ–Ⅳ)	CellSearch (Positive Selection ICC)	Before, during, after treatment	0–43	EpCAM	15%	14	No difference	Decrease in CTC over treatment correlated with response; CTCs presence trended positively with increasing stage (NS)
Bozec et al (2013)²²	49	Prospective	Ⅲ–Ⅳ	CellSearch (Positive Selection ICC)	N/A	0–5	EpCAM	16%	6	No difference
Hseih et al (2014)³³	53	Prospective	LR advanced, recurrent, metastatic	Negative Depletion ICC	Before treatment	N/A	EpCAM	19%	10.5	PDPN+/EpCAM + ratio >20% prognostic factor for DSM
Grisanti et al (2014)³²	53	Prospective	Recurrent/Metastatic	CellSearch (Positive Selection ICC)	Before, during, after treatment	0–43	EpCAM	26% baseline; 41% at any point	25	Reduced PFS and OS
Tinhofer et al (2014)³⁶	144	Prospective	Ⅲ–Ⅳ	RT-PCR	After surgery, before adjuvant	N/A	EpCAM, CK	29%	34	Reduced DFS and OS in Non-OPSCCa; opposite effect in OPSCC	No assoc. between CTC presence and HPV in OPSCCa
Inhestern et al (2015)²⁵	40	Prospective	Ⅱ–Ⅳ	Flow cytometry	Before, during, after treatment	0–11298	EpCAM	80% baseline; 97% at any point	23	Baseline CTCs > median = reduced RFS and Maximal CTCs at any point > median = reduced OS	Overall CTCs decreased during IC; increased after surgery; decreased after radiotherapy

ICC: immunocytochemistry; EpCAM: epithelial cell adhesion molecule; RT-PCR: reverse transcriptase – polymerase chain reaction; CK: cytokeratin; DFS: disease free survival; EGFR: epidermal growth factor receptor; LR: locoregional; CTC: circulating tumor cell; HNSCC: head and neck squamous cell carcinoma; SNUC: sinonasal undifferentiated carcinoma; NS: not significant; PDPN: podoplanin; OS: overall survival; OPSCC: oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma.