Circulating Tumor Cells and Melanoma Progression

Circulating Tumor Cells in Melanoma Patients

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are of recognized importance for diagnosis and prognosis of cancer patients. With melanoma, most studies do not show any clear relationship between CTC levels and stage of disease. Here, CTCs were enriched (∼400X) from blood of melanoma patients using a simple centrifugation device (OncoQuick), and 4 melanocyte target RNAs (TYR, MLANA, MITF, and MIF) were quantifi...

Circulating Melanoma Cells

Dynamic Fluctuation of Circulating Tumor Cells during Cancer Progression

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are a promising diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for metastatic tumors. We demonstrate that CTCs' diagnostic value might be increased through real-time monitoring of CTC dynamics. Using preclinical animal models of breast cancer and melanoma and in vivo flow cytometry with photoacoustic and fluorescence detection schematics, we show that CTC count does not alwa...

Circulating endothelial cells as biomarkers for angiogenesis in tumor progression.

An increased number of circulating endothelial cells (CECs) and endothelial progenitor cells (CEPs) has been reported in cancer patients. CEPs are derived from the bone marrow and will, during angiogenesis, differentiate into endothelial cells. CECs are mature endothelial cells (ECs) released from the vessel intima during physiological endothelial turnover or as a result of tumor treatment. Pre...

Tumor-Related Methylated Cell-Free DNA and Circulating Tumor Cells in Melanoma

Solid tumor release into the circulation cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) which represent promising biomarkers for cancer diagnosis. Circulating tumor DNA may be studied in plasma from cancer patients by detecting tumor specific alterations, such as genetic or epigenetic modifications. Ras association domain family 1 isoform A (RASSF1A) is a tumor suppressor gene silence...