Your doctor may order a test for circulating tumor cells (CTCs) to help guide your cancer care.
One of the major challenges in treating cancer is getting “all” of the cancer, including the parts we cannot see. Even if surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation removes all traces of known cancer, there is still a risk of the cancer returning, often in a distant location in the body. This may occur as a result of CTCs.
Circulating tumor cells were first found in the blood under the microscope nearly 150 years ago. They are cancer cells from the primary tumor that escaped into the bloodstream to circulate around the body. As a result, these cells can serve as seeds for new areas of cancer to grow in distant organs. This is known asmetastasis.
Not all CTCs have the ability to land and establish a new metastasis in a distant organ; some may remain dormant (inactive) or be controlled by the immune system for years, sometimes forever.
Read more: Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs)
Source: jamanetwork
