Table 2.
Summary of the melanoma CTC studies included in this review.
| Variables | N | |
|---|---|---|
| Study design | Single-center | 19 |
| Multicenter | 5 | |
| Disease status | Localized | 1 |
| Metastatic | 12 | |
| Both | 11 | |
| Blood draw | Single | 10 |
| Multiple | 14 | |
| CTC enrichment | CELLSEARCH® | 6 |
| ClearCell® FX | 1 | |
| None | 17 | |
| CTC detection | Multi-marker RT-PCR | 13 |
| Single-marker RT-PCR | 4 | |
| CellSearch | 6 | |
| Flow cytometry | 1 | |
| RT-PCR mRNA markers | MLANA | 12 |
| TYR | 10 | |
| MAGE | 9 | |
| PAX3 | 4 | |
| PMEL | 3 | |
| MITF | 3 | |
| MIA | 2 | |
| B4GALNT1 | 2 | |
| Outcomes | Survival | 19 |
| AJCC Stage | 5 | |
| Progression | 5 | |
| Treatment response | 5 | |
| Recurrence | 3 |
CTC: circulating tumor cell, N: number of studies, RT-PCR: reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction, mRNA: messenger RNA, AJCC: The American Joint Committee on Cancer. Official gene symbols approved by the HGNC (https://www.genenames.org/, accessed on 2 February 2022) are used for gene names.