TY - JOUR AU - Deng, Glenn AU - Herrler, Michael AU - Burgess, David AU - Manna, Edward AU - Krag, David AU - Burke, Julian F. PY - 2008 DA - 2008/08/07 TI - Enrichment with anti-cytokeratin alone or combined with anti-EpCAM antibodies significantly increases the sensitivity for circulating tumor cell detection in metastatic breast cancer patients JO - Breast Cancer Research SP - R69 VL - 10 IS - 4 AB - Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are detectable in most cancer patients and they can meet an existing medical need to monitor cancer patients during a course of treatment and to help determine recurrent disease. CTCs are rarely found in the blood of cancer patients and enrichment is necessary for sensitive CTC detection. Most CTC enrichment technologies are anti-EpCAM antibody based even though CTC identification criteria are cytokeratin positive (CK+), CD45 negative (CD45-) and 4'6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (nuclear stain) positive (DAPI+). However, some tumor cells express low or no EpCAM. Here we present a highly sensitive and reproducible enrichment method that is based on binding to anti-CK alone or a combination of anti-CK and anti-EpCAM antibodies. SN - 1465-542X UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/bcr2131 DO - 10.1186/bcr2131 ID - Deng2008 ER -