Figure 5.

Potential circulating tumor cells (CTCs) could be enriched from head and neck cancer patient blood. (A) Clinical parameters and numbers of detected CTCs for three patients suffering from hypo- or oropharyngeal cancers including lymph node metastases. (B) 7.5 mL of patient blood was mixed with EpCAM-coupled T1 beads and placed into the IsoMAG unit for automatic enrichment of CTCs. For cell counting, enriched cells were stained with Hoechst dye, cytokeratin (panCK-PE), and CD45-FITC antibodies and quantified by fluorescence microscopy. [Hoechst+/CD45−/panCK+] cells were classified as potential CTCs, [Hoechst+/CD45+/panCK−] cells as leukocytes (WBC). Scale bar, 10 µm.