Table 1. Main assays developed for CTCs detection and isolation.

CTCs detection/isolation assay	Sensitivity	Specificity	Limitations	Ref
EpCAM-based assay (Cellsearch)	20-100%	80-95%	no EMT CTCs detection	[10–16]
CD45- based assay	73-100%	82%	limited number of studies	[17–18]
Chip-based assay (CTC-chip…)	36-99%	100%	purity sometimes low	[23–43]
Size-based assay (ISET, ScreenCell, MCA…)	41-80%	90-100%	poor inter-institution correlation rate (ISET)	[44–54]