CTCs hemodialysis: can it be a new therapy for breast cancer?

Abstract

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) play an important role in Blood-borne distant metastasis, which is the leading cause of cancer-related death in breast cancer. So far, the impacts of CTCs as a tool for predicting or monitoring the efficacy of systemic therapy and that it is a independent prognostic factor have been confirmed. However, CTCs cannot be generally removed at primary surgery or by systemic therapy. In some EMT (epithelial mesenchymal transition)-related treatment fail, CTCs can be accumulated in the postoperative course of the patient which lead to a bad prognosis. In view of these, considering mature hemodialysis technology, we further propose CTCs hemodialysis (CHD), which filtrate CTCs out of blood, as a new therapy for the breast cancer.