Capture of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) using a novel micro-device

Abstract

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are metastatic cells that are detached from a tumor and are found in the blood of cancer patients. The presence of CTCs in the blood indicates the metastatic stage of cancer, so the detection of CTCs has been considered as a diagnosis and prognosis marker. Although some efforts have been made to isolate CTCs from blood, it is still challenging due to the rarity of CTCs in blood (approximately one in one billion of blood cells). Apart from some fundamental problems, like non-retrieval of cells from antibody-coated surface, long processing time etc., the main problem with these methods is the loss of cell-viability which impede further study. Here, we demonstrate a novel and efficient micro-device for capturing CTCs at high throughput besides retaining their vaibility. We have fabricated a unique membrane filter with an array of pores where each pore is surrounded by four dome-shaped microstructures. These microstructures extend extra support to cells to maintain their vaibility.