title: Highly sensitive enumeration of circulating tumor cells in lung cancer patients using a size-based filtration microfluidic chip.
abstract: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the peripheral blood could serve as a surrogate marker for the diagnosis of cancer metastasis and for therapeutic evaluation. However, the separation and characterization of CTCs is technically challenging owing to the extremely low number of CTCs present. Here we developed a size-based and high-throughput microfluidic chip, which exploits filtration microchannels to isolate the relatively larger CTCs from the rest of the blood constituents. High isolation efficiency of our microfluidic chip was demonstrated with three lung cancer cell lines spiked in blood samples at an optimal flow rate of 0.4 mL/h. The average recovery rates of 96%, 95% and 92% were obtained for A549, SK-MES-1, and H446, respectively. To clinically validate the chip, we also employed it to isolate CTCs from 59 lung cancer patients. CTCs were detected in 96.7% of patients with the mean number of 18.6 cells/mL, which was significantly higher than normal controls (P<0.05). The work here indicates that the size-based microfluidic platform with the advantage of capturing tumor cells without reliance on cell surface expression markers can provide a novel, inexpensive and effective tool for CTC detection and evaluation of cancer status.
authors: State Key Laboratory of Transducer Technology and the Science and Technology on Micro-system Laboratory, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 865 Changning Road, Shanghai 200050, China; Department of Tumor Chemotherapy, The Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, No. 20 Xisi Road, Nantong, Jiangsu 226001, China; Department of Oncology, The People's Hospital of Chizhou, No. 3 Baiya Middle Road, Chizhou, Anhui 247100, China. Electronic address: ahwwh0416@163.com.
authors: Ting
authors: T
authors: Huang
authors: Chun-Ping
authors: CP
authors: Jia
authors: Jun-Yang
authors: Wen-Jie
authors: WJ
authors: Sun
authors: Wen-Tao
authors: WT
authors: Wang
authors: Hong-Lian
authors: HL
authors: Zhang
authors: Hui
authors: H
authors: Cong
authors: Feng-Xiang
authors: FX
authors: Jing
authors: Hong-Ju
authors: HJ
authors: Mao
authors: Qing-Hui
authors: QH
authors: Jin
authors: Zhen
authors: Z
authors: Zhang
authors: Ying-Jie
authors: YJ
authors: Chen
authors: Gang
authors: G
authors: Li
authors: Guo-Xin
authors: GX
authors: Mao
authors: Jian-Long
authors: JL
authors: Zhao
mesh_terms: D015374:Biosensing Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation; D002452:Cell Count; D002469:Cell Separation / Q000295:instrumentation*; D048429:Cell Size; D004867:Equipment Design; D005374:Filtration / Q000295:instrumentation; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000473:pathology*; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*; D009360:Neoplastic Cells, Circulating / Q000473:pathology*
keywords: Circulating tumor cells; Filtration microfluidic chip; Lung cancer; Size-based