Circulating tumor cells – a promising new approach

It is an old observation, that tumor cells can escape from the primary, travel with the circulation, and fi nally be arrested in distant places. To know the potential „advantage” of this phenomenon (circulating tumor cells, CTC) is very important. One of the key questions is the proper sensitivity of isolation and characterisation techniques being able to represent the heterogeneity of tumorous clones. There is no doubt that the time arrived for the application of minimal invasive markers in oncology, with the hope that the survival of the patients can be improved using real-time monitoring and more effective therapy. The analysis of CTCs/cfDNA and other markers (e.g. miRNA, exosomes) obtained from the blood will be, hopefully, rutine tool in designing therapeutic strategy, and monitoring tumor response.