Table 1.

Performance comparison of some inertial-based microfluidic devices for separation of circulating tumor cells

Channel	Blood sample	Dilution	Efficiency	Recovery rate	Purity	Mini spiking (cells/mL)	Flow rate (mL/h)	Comment	Ref.
Straight	Whole blood	No dilution	>89%	~82%	N/A	N/A	6.75	1 cm straight channel	31
Straight	Whole blood	No dilution	95%	77.5%	N/A	50	0.45	Long channel, PEO contamination	30
Spiral	RBC lysed	5×	N/A	74.5%	N/A	72	5	Double spiral + filtration membrane	29
Spiral	RBC lysed	2×	N/A	>80%	400–680 WBCs/mL	66	51	Large slanted spiral, high throughput	26
Spiral	RBC lysed	50×	N/A	>73%	63%	>1000	2.4	Cascaded spirals + zigzag channel	44
Vortex	Whole blood	10–20×	<27%	>57%	89%	200	22.5	8 Paralleled channels, non-continuous	39,48
Straight	RBC lysed	5×	99.3%	>93%	88.7%	2	1.2	Single channel, recovery rate was 83% for spiking 10 cells in 5 mL sample	This work

All flow rates from references are converted into effective flow rate of # mL of undiluted whole blood per hour (mL/h) in the table