Peripheral blood samples were obtained from 66 female patients with MBC at different time intervals for evaluation of CTCs by flow cytometry (FC). cytokeratin 19 (CK19), mammaglobin, prolactin inducible peptide (PIP), aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 (ALDH1) and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) were also assessed by qRT-PCR.
The detection rates of CK-19 mRNA in breast cancer patients were 47.8% for early breast cancer (33/69), 46.8% for locally advanced breast cancer (22/47), and 61.1% for metastatic breast cancer (77/129).
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) detected by triple-marker EpCAM, CK19, and hMAM RT-PCR and their relation to clinical outcome in metastatic breast cancer patients.
The presence of baseline CK19+mRNA CTCs was associated with poor prognosis; a decrease in MGB1+mRNA CTCs may help predict response to therapy of MBC patients.
The association between CK19 and markers of disease burden is in line with the concept that CTCs may be a reliable measure of tumor cells in the peripheral blood of patients with metastatic breast cancer.
The expression of cytokeratins (CK), VEGF, vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGF2), HIF-1alpha and phosphorylated-focal adhesion kinase (pFAK) in CTCs from 34 patients with metastatic breast cancer who had detectable CK-19 mRNA-positive CTCs was assessed using double staining experiments and confocal laser scanning microscopy.
In order to detect micrometastasis in patients with breast cancer, we evaluated and compared CK19 gene expression using RT-PCR in blood samples collected from 80 healthy women and 80 patients with localized or metastatic breast cancer.
We previously found a statistically significant number of cytokeratin 19 (CK19)+ cells in peripheral blood (PB) of stage IV breast cancer (BC) patients compared with those of healthy volunteers, using a quantitative real-time reverse transcription-PCR.
A sensitivity of 1 tumor cell in 5 million NDMNC was consistently achieved with a metastatic breast cancer cell line with target primer sets for CK19 and EGF-R. Less, but appreciable sensitivity was achieved by spiking NDMNC with other breast cancer cells.
The detection rates of CK-19 and maspin mRNA in bone marrow aspirates were 33% and 11% for operable and 62% and 9% for metastatic breast cancer, respectively.
Detection rates for CK-19 mRNA-positive cells in the bone marrow/blood of patients with early or metastatic breast cancer were 63%/30% and 74%/52%, respectively.
In this pilot study, we detected significantly elevated CK19 transcript levels in < 10% of the volunteers, in +/- 30% of stage I-IIIa patients preoperatively and in > 70% of the and stage IV breast cancer patients.
The aim of this study was to analyze plasma DNA from primary and metastatic breast cancer cases for tumor-specific alterations and to compare these findings with immunocytochemistry and estimation of cytokeratin 19 (CK19) mRNA for detection of micrometastases.
CK19 expression showed overlapping values when measured in samples from peripheral blood and bone marrow in operable breast cancer patients, in healthy volunteers or patients without epithelial cancer and in blood samples from patients with metastatic breast cancer.
Using these figures as cut-off points, elevated CK-19: ABL ratios were detected in peripheral-blood samples of 20 of 37 (54%) patients with metastatic breast cancer and in bone marrow samples of 14 of 23 (61%) patients with primary breast cancer.