Isolation of circulating tumor cells in non small cell lung cancer patients using a multi flow microfluidic channel
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) carry a wealth of information on primary and metastatic tumors critical for precise cancer detection, monitoring, and treatment. Numerous microfluidic platforms have been developed in the past few years to capture these rare cells in patient bloodstream for deciphering the critical information needed. However, the practical need for a high quality method of CTC isolation remains to be met. Herein, we demonstrate a novel multi flow microfluidic device that is able to sensitively provide high purity >87% of separation outcome without labeling. Our device is constructed and configured based on the phenomenal effect of size dependent inertial migration. The recovery rate of >93% has been achieved using spiked cancer cells at clinically relevant concentrations (10 cells per 5 mL and above) We have also successfully detected CTCs from 6 out of 8 non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, while none for 5 healthy control subjects. With these results, we envision our approach is a promising alternative for reliable CTC capture, and thus for facilitating the progress of extracting information from CTCs to personalize treatment strategies for solid tumor patients.Microfluidics: New system to isolate circulating tumor cellsA novel multi flow microfluidic system has been devised to isolate circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in patients with non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) NSCLC accounts for around 85% of all lung cancers. CTCs are cells that have been released from a primary tumor and are transported around the body by the blood. Those cells carry information that is critical for precise cancer detection, monitoring, and treatment; however, a high quality method for isolating CTCs has hitherto been lacking. A team headed by Ian Papautsky at the University of Illinois at Chicago developed a novel multi flow microfluidic device that affords high fidelity in separating CTCs from the blood of NSCLC patients. The authors believe that their versatile device offers considerable potential for facilitating extraction of information from CTCs in NSCLC and other forms of cancer.
Microsystems nanoengineering