“tagCTC with its unique features matches the unmet need for high purity CTC isolation from blood in a viable way, with prompt cell count information, offered in a single test“
Liquid Biopsy
Routine method for cancer diagnosis and monitoring is surgical biopsy: an invasive, painful and risky procedure. It might not even be possible to perform if the tumor’s location cannot be confirmed or tumor is not available for extraction.
Liquid biopsy is advantageous over surgical biopsy as it is minimally-invasive, repeatable, cost effective, independent of tumor tissue availability and provides comprehensive tumor information to the physician, pharmacologist and researcher.
Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs)
CTCs are cancer cells disseminating from the tumor site to the bloodstream and have metastasis potential. CTCs being intact cells, step forward among other liquid biopsy analytes (cell fragments such as ctDNAs and exosomes) as they contain whole cancer cell information and allow morphological and functional analysis. However, the isolation of CTCs is not easy since they are very rare (1-10 CTCs/mL of wholeblood), against a background of millions of white blood cells and billions of red blood cells. Therefore there is an unmet need for a high-performance, easy-to-use system giving a prompt result to the physician.
