TY - JOUR
T1 - Relevance of disseminated tumour cells in blood and bone marrow of patients with solid epithelial tumours in perspective
AU - Vlems, F. A.
AU - Ruers, T. J. M.
AU - Punt, C. J. A.
AU - Wobbes, Th
AU - van Muijen, G. N. P.
PY - 2003
Y1 - 2003
N2 - Currently-used systems to predict prognosis in patients with solid epithelial tumours after surgical resection of the tumour do not give any guarantees for the individual patient. In this respect the clinical relevance of the presence of disseminated tumour cells in blood and bone marrow has been frequently studied. Because of growing awareness that information on merely the presence of disseminated tumour cells is not sufficient for prognostic and therapeutic purposes, attention for characterization of disseminated tumour cells has increased. Numerous reviews have already been published on the detection and clinical relevance of disseminated tumour cells. Therefore, this paper will mainly focus on the biological significance of these cells and discusses the (in)efficiency of the metastatic process, the genotypic and phenotypic characteristics of disseminated tumour cells, and their structure of appearance. Despite the fact that information gained on the several individual aspects is substantial, it did not render any solid solutions for individual patient management yet. Hence, a combined approach of several aspects of disseminated tumour cells together with characteristics and behaviour of the primary tumour is needed to substantially improve our knowledge on the role of disseminated tumour cells in the complex process of tumour metastasis
AB - Currently-used systems to predict prognosis in patients with solid epithelial tumours after surgical resection of the tumour do not give any guarantees for the individual patient. In this respect the clinical relevance of the presence of disseminated tumour cells in blood and bone marrow has been frequently studied. Because of growing awareness that information on merely the presence of disseminated tumour cells is not sufficient for prognostic and therapeutic purposes, attention for characterization of disseminated tumour cells has increased. Numerous reviews have already been published on the detection and clinical relevance of disseminated tumour cells. Therefore, this paper will mainly focus on the biological significance of these cells and discusses the (in)efficiency of the metastatic process, the genotypic and phenotypic characteristics of disseminated tumour cells, and their structure of appearance. Despite the fact that information gained on the several individual aspects is substantial, it did not render any solid solutions for individual patient management yet. Hence, a combined approach of several aspects of disseminated tumour cells together with characteristics and behaviour of the primary tumour is needed to substantially improve our knowledge on the role of disseminated tumour cells in the complex process of tumour metastasis
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1053/ejso.2002.1394
DO - https://doi.org/10.1053/ejso.2002.1394
M3 - Review article
C2 - 12711279
SN - 0748-7983
VL - 29
SP - 289
EP - 302
JO - European Journal of Surgical Oncology
JF - European Journal of Surgical Oncology
IS - 4
ER -