Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are promising biomarkers for diagnosis and therapy in systemic cancer. However, their infrequent and unreliable detection, especially in nonmetastatic cancer, currently ...impedes the clinical use of CTCs. Because leukapheresis (LA) targets peripheral blood mononuclear cells, which have a similar density to CTCs, and usually involves processing the whole circulating blood, we tested whether LA could substantially increase CTC detection in operable cancer patients. Therefore, we screened LA products generated from up to 25 L of blood per patient in two independent studies, and found that CTCs can be detected in more than 90% of nonmetastatic breast cancer patients. Interestingly, complete white blood cell sampling enabled determining an upper level for total CTC numbers of about 100,000 cells (median, 7,500 CTCs) per patient and identified a correlation of CTC numbers with anatomic disease spread. We further show that diagnostic leukapheresis can be easily combined with the US Food and Drug Administration-approved CellSearch system for standardized enumeration of CTCs. Direct comparison with 7.5 mL of blood revealed a significantly higher CTC frequency in matched LA samples. Finally, genomic single-cell profiling disclosed highly aberrant CTCs as therapy-escaping variants in breast cancer. In conclusion, LA is a clinically safe method that enabled a reliable detection of CTCs at high frequency even in nonmetastatic cancer patients, and might facilitate the routine clinical use of CTCs as in the sense of a liquid biopsy. Combined with technologies for single-cell molecular genetics or cell biology, it may significantly improve prediction of therapy response and monitoring of early systemic cancer.
We report a case of an 84-year-old male patient with primary small intestinal angiosarcoma.The patient initially presented with anemia and melena.Consecutive endoscopy revealed no signs of upper or ...lower active gastrointestinal bleeding.The patient had been diagnosed 3 years previously with an aortic dilation,which was treated with a stent.Computed tomography suggested an aorto-intestinal fistula as the cause of the intestinal bleeding,leading to operative stent explantation and aortic replacement.However,an aorto-intestinal fistula was not found,and the intestinal bleeding did not arrest postoperatively.The constant need for blood transfusions made an exploratory laparotomy imperative,which showed multiple bleeding sites,predominately in the jejunal wall.A distal loop jejunostomy was conducted to contain the small intestinal bleeding and a segmental resection for histological evaluation was performed.The histological analysis revealed a lessdifferentiated tumor with characteristic CD31,cytokeratin,and vimentin expression,which led to the diagnosis of small intestinal angiosarcoma.Consequently,the infiltrated part of the jejunum was successfully resected in a subsequent operation,and adjuvant chemotherapy with paclitaxel was planned.Angiosarcoma of the small intestine is an extremely rare malignant neoplasm that presents with bleeding and high mortality.Early diagnosis and treatment are essential to improve outcome.A small intestinal angiosarcoma is a challenging diagnosis to make because of its rarity,nonspecific symptoms of altered intestinal function,nonspecific abdominal pain,severe melena,and acute abdominal signs.Therefore,a quick clinical and histological diagnosis and decisive measures including surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy should be the aim.
Neurofibromatosis type 1 is an autosomal dominant disease characterized by multiple dermatological disorders amongst others. Among the less frequent manifestations are vascular abnormalities. Here, ...we present a case of spontaneous massive hemothorax in a 39-year-old Caucasian woman with neurofibromatosis 1 and a thoracic meningocele with a lethal outcome despite extensive surgical intervention as well as intensive care measures. Spontaneous hemothorax is a rare, but potentially lethal complication of neurofibromatosis type 1, which necessitates quick and decisive intervention; endovascular embolization where possible, otherwise aggressive surgical intervention in unstable patients.
Abstract only
e21020
Background: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are promising biomarkers for diagnosis and systemic therapy. However, their infrequent detection rates limit currently their clinical ...use. Here we tested whether leukapheresis could be a suitable method to increase CTC yields and detection rates by increasing dramatically the analyzed blood volume. Methods: We screened 3x10
6
PBMNCs of 48 historical leukapheresis products harvested from 24 breast cancer patients in the setting of high-dose chemotherapy and from a non-cancer control group (n=10), respectively, with a standard immuno-assay using an anti-cytokeratin antibody (A45/BB3) to detect CTCs. Detected CTCs were isolated, their genomic DNA amplified, and the whole genome screened for chromosomal aberrations using comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) (n=48). To validate the CTC detection frequencies in leukapheresis products, we initiated a prospective pilot-study and performed leukapheresis in 13 cancer patients (breast and pancreatic cancer). 1 mL of the leukapheresis product (total volume: up to 150 ml) was analyzed using the CellSearch® system as well as 7.5 ml peripheral blood taken from the same patients. Results: 44/48 (91.7%) of leukapheresis samples contained CTCs with a median count of 3.0 in 3x10
6
PBMNC (range: 1-35 CTCs). None of the 10 analyzed healthy controls displayed CTCs. We successfully performed single cell CGH of 48 CTCs from 19 patients revealing aberrant CGH profiles in 56% with gains and losses typical for breast cancer. Interestingly, CTCs with high aberration numbers were associated with early metastatic relapse. The validation study using CellSearch® in 13 cancer patients demonstrated in leukapheresis products significantly higher CTC detection frequencies (13/13 vs. 5/13) and CTC numbers (median: 13, range: 1-51 vs. median 0, range: 0-7; p<0.001) compared to the matched peripheral blood samples. Conclusions: Our results indicated that leukapheresis provides CTC detection rates and yields at unprecedented scale. Thus we believe, that leukapheresis will help to exploit the full clinical potential of CTCs as biomarkers for diagnosis and systemic therapy.
PDF
