Detection of circulating tumour cells in peripheral blood of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma

Cancer Biomarkers 2014 December 12 [Epub ahead of print] [Link]

Raphael J, Massard C, Gong IY, Farace F, Margery J, Billiot F, Hollebecque A, Besse B, Soria JC, Planchard D.

Abstract

Background

The independent prognostic value of Circulating Tumour Cells (CTC) level has been demonstrated in several solid tumours. There is currently few data on Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma (MPM) and CTC. We investigated whether the presence of CTC was correlated with prognosis factors and treatment efficacy.

Methods/Objectives

MPM patients (pts) were enrolled in a prospective monocentric study. CTC detection was made using the “CellSearch” assay. The correlation between the presence of CTC and worse prognosis factors was assessed using the X^{2} test. Comparison of Overall Survival (OS) and Progression Free Survival (PFS) according to CTC detection was performed using the log-rank test.

Results

Twenty-seven MPM pts with a median follow-up of 4.2 months were included. CTC were detected in 44% of pts with a median level of 1.5. No significant correlation was observed between the presence of CTC and worse prognosis factors. Moreover, CTC detection was not a significant predictor of OS or PFS (p=0.155 and p=0.32 respectively).

Conclusions

CTC were detected in a small cohort of MPM patients. We couldn’t demonstrate a significant prognostic value or a difference in OS/PFS between CTC levels. Further analyses, validation studies and detection techniques are needed to establish their real clinical value in MPM.