February 6, 2014
A key challenge to using CTCs is their rarity, according to invited discussant Rebecca A. Miksad of Harvard Medical School and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, both in Boston.
“In the data presented, the difference between cancer and no cancer is one CTC; similarly, the difference between metastatic and locoregional cancer is one CTC. Because CTCs are detected only in whole numbers, these close cutoffs raise questions about the accuracy, reliability, and reproducibility; in other words, will the same result be found in repeated analysis of the same sample and in different samples from the same patient,” she commented.