循环肿瘤细胞检测方法在食管癌中的应用及展望

Application and Prospect of Detection Methods of Circulating Tumor Cells in Esophageal Cancer

摘要: 食管癌作为世界上最常见的恶性肿瘤之一，具有较高的发病率及死亡率。及时发现和诊断食管癌对患者的治疗和预后至关重要。现有诊断与长期监测食管癌的方法具有一定的局限性，如影像学检测受限于肿瘤大小；鳞状细胞癌抗原(squamous cell carcinoma antigen, SCCA)、癌胚抗原(carcinoembryonic antigen, CEA)等血清肿瘤标志物的特异性和准确性较低；组织病理学作为肿瘤诊断的“金标准”，但是侵入性检查，且由于肿瘤的异质性，病理活检有其局限性。循环肿瘤细胞(circulating tumor cells, CTCs)是指从原发肿瘤病灶中脱落并随血液循环到达身体各处的肿瘤细胞，针对CTCs的检测事新兴的液体活检方法之一，被广泛应用于研究各种肿瘤。本文综述了循环肿瘤细胞的分离及富集方法，并综述了CTCs与食管癌放化疗之间的研究，并对其未来进行展望。

Abstract: As one of the most common malignant tumors in the world, esophageal cancer has high morbidity and mortality. Timely detection and diagnosis of esophageal cancer is crucial to the treatment and prognosis of patients. The existing methods for diagnosis and long-term monitoring of esophageal cancer have certain limitations, for example, imaging detection is limited by tumor size. The speci-ficity and accuracy of serum tumor markers such as squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) antigen and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) are low. Histopathology is the “gold standard” for tumor diagnosis, but it’s an invasive medical test, pathological biopsy has its limitations due to the heterogeneity of tumor. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are tumor cells that fall out of the primary tumor focus and reach all parts of the body with blood circulation. The detection of CTC is one of the emerging liquid biopsy methods, and is widely used to study various tumors. In this paper, the separation and en-richment methods of circulating tumor cells are reviewed, and the research between CTC and radi-otherapy and chemotherapy of esophageal cancer is reviewed, and its future is prospected.