摘要
Melanoma is the deadliest skin cancer and is responsible for over 7000 deaths in the US annually.The spread of cancer,or metastasis,is responsible for these deaths,as secondary tumors interrupt normal organ function.Circulating tumor cells,or those cells that spread throughout the body from the primary tumor,are thought to be responsible for metastasis.We developed an optical method,photoacoustic flow cytometry,in order to detect and enumerate circulating melanoma cells(CMCs)from blood samples of patients.We tested the blood of StageⅣmelanoma patients to show the ability of the photoacoustic flow cytometer to detect these rare cells in blood.We then tested the system on archived blood samples from StageⅢmelanoma patients with known outcomes to determine if detection of CMCs can predict future metastasis.We detected between 0 and 66 CMCs in StageⅣpatients.For the StageⅢstudy,we found that of those samples with CMCs,two remained disease free and five developed metastasis.Of those without CMCs,six remained disease free and one developed metastasis.We believe that photoacoustic detection of CMCs provides valuable information for the prediction of metastasis and we postulate a system for more accurate prognosis.
基金
supported by National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under award number 1R01CA161367-01
the PA C.U.R.E program from the Pennsylvania Department of Health
作者简介
Corresponding author:John A.Viator,viatorj@dug.edu
