In-vivo isolation of circulating tumor cells in non-small cell lung cancer patients by CellCollector

In non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can provide information on patient prognosis and treatment efficacy. Currently CTCs are mostly isolated in vitro from small volumes of patient blood samples. The aim of the study was to assess a medical device for in vivo isolation of CTCs directly from the blood of NSCLC patients. The device was inserted in a cubital vein through a standard cannula for thirty minutes. The interaction of target CTCs with the CellCollector was mediated by an antibody directed against the epithelial cell adhesion molecule. There were 60 applications of the wire in 48 stage I-IIIB NSCLC patients and 12 non-cancer patients. The device was well tolerated in all applications without side effects. We obtained in vivo isolation of CTCs in 32 of 34 NSCLC patients (94.1%) with a median (range) of 13 (0-300) CTCs. In the non-cancer patients, no CTCs were detected. The safety and efficacy of an in vivo CTC detection method directly from the bloodstream of patients with NSCLC has been demonstrated. This proof of concept study may have important clinical implications, as the implementation of the device into clinical practice may improve early detection, prognosis and therapy monitoring of NSCLC patients.