Figure 2.

The positivity of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in different clinical scenarios. The CTC positivity is not different among four subgroups before curative surgery and is statistically different immediately after the surgery (postoperative day 0, p = 0.04). A possible false positivity of 25.0% can be observed in the benign group (n = 4), but it goes down to zero after surgery. On the other hand, the CTC positivity of the oligometastasis group (n = 6) remains 40.0–80.0% though the operation has removed even the visible tumor(s).