Abstract
The current knowledge of circulating tumor cells (CTC) give us hope that through them we get information about the heterogeneity of tumor diseases and the dynamic behavior of the disease itself. Simplicity of blood withdrawal procedure adds practically unlimited patients monitoring possibility and advantages of repeated biopsies over time.
The existence of CTC was predicted long before the era of modern technology and their importance in the proces of tumor spread was remited to the study of their prognostic significance in the last decade. The prognostic significance of CTC has been documented by a number of studies in many diagnoses, while CTC's role in prediction of disease behavior is still lacking in the amount of evidence needed.
The article reports on personal experiences with CTC-testing and its potential use in patients with breast, colorectal, prostate and lung cancer (NSCLC). Recently, examination is indicated only as a complementary test.