Poster Presentation Clinical Oncology Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting 2019

Cytology-based Circulating-Tumour-Cell (CTC) Screening Test improves Detection of Prostate Cancer (#191)

Karin Ried 1 2 , Tasnuva Tamanna 1 , Sonja Matthews 1 , Peter Eng 1 , Avni Sali 1
  1. National Institute of Integrative Medicine (NIIM), Hawthorn, VIC, Australia
  2. Discipline of General Practice, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia

Aims

Evaluation of the cytology-based ISET-CTC (Isolation-by-Size-of-Epithelial-Circulating-Tumour-Cells, Rarecells, France) blood test as a screening tool for the early detection of cancer.

 

Background

Circulating-Tumour-Cells (CTC) provide a blood biomarker for early carcinogenesis, cancer progression and treatment effectiveness. An increase in CTCs is associated with cancer progression, a CTC decrease with cancer containment or remission.

The ISET-CTC Test is a clinically validated cytology-based blood-test superior in its sensitivity and specificity to identifying cancer cells compared to non-cytological marker-based CTC tests, and has been featured in >80 peer-reviewed articles published worldwide over the last 20 years.1-4

 

Methods

This observational study compared CTC-count to cancer status and cancer risk, by monitoring treatment effectiveness in cancer patients and by screening for CTC in asymptomatic patients with risk factors, including family history of cancer. In a subgroup of male patients with positive CTC-count, we also undertook immunohistochemistry (IHC) assays with prostate-specific-antibodies.

 

Results

To date, NIIM has undertaken more than 2000 CTC tests, half of which were screening requests with CTC detected in 50% and early cancer in 25%.5 CTC-count related to cancer risk and cancer status. Asymptomatic males with normal Prostate-Specific-Antigen (PSA) levels and a positive CTC-count (CTC-screening) were followed-up by PSMA-PET (prostate-specific-membrane-antigen-PET) scans and biopsy, indicative of early prostate cancer. Additionally, IHC-assays with PSA and Prostein antibodies of 30 screened-male-patients and n=20 prostate-cancer-patients as positive controls, confirmed CTC-origin from the prostate.

 

Conclusions

Cytology-based ISET-CTC screening provides a highly sensitive non-invasive test for early detection of cancer, with higher CTC-counts being associated with higher risk of malignancy. We found CTC-count to be a better predictor for early prostate cancer than standard PSA-blood-testing. Early detection of cancer risk supports early interventions and preventative actions. Integrative lifestyle and nutritional therapies can reduce the CTC-count and therefore cancer risk.

  1. Ilie M, Hofman V, Long-Mira E, Selva E, Vignaud J-M, Padovani B, et al. “Sentinel” Circulating Tumor Cells Allow Early Diagnosis of Lung Cancer in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Plos One 2014;9(10):e111597.
  2. Cristofanilli M, Budd GT, Ellis MJ, Stopeck A, Matera J, Miller MC, et al. Circulating tumor cells, disease progression, and survival in metastatic breast cancer. N Engl J Med 2004;351(8):781-91.
  3. Vona G, Sabile A, Louha M, Sitruk V, Romana S, Schutze K, et al. Isolation by size of epithelial tumor cells : a new method for the immunomorphological and molecular characterization of circulating tumor cells. Am J Pathol 2000;156(1):57-63.
  4. http://www.rarecells.com/oncology
  5. Ried K, Eng P, Sali A. Screening for Circulating Tumour Cells Allows Early Detection of Cancer and Monitoring of Treatment Effectiveness: An Observational Study. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev 2017, 18 (8), 2275-2285.