Utilidad pronóstica de la detección de células tumorales circulantes (CTCs) en pacientes con tumores sólidos de origen epitelial

Abstract

Cancer, specially lung, breast and colorectal cancers, is a main cause of worldwide death. Due to metastases are responsible of the the most deaths caused by cancer, an early spread of disease´s diagnosis is essential. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have metastatic potential and are responsible for the spread of cancer from primary tumors to other organs. Thereby, the detection and characterization of CTCs should be a priority in cancer study and treatment. The mains goals of this thesis are: first of all, to develop a methodology that allow us to isolate and characterize these CTCs; second, to test the prognostic value of CTCs´ detection in peripheral blood of breast and colon cancer patients; and, finally, the genetic and phenotypic characterization of these CTCs. The results suggest that (i) CTCs´ detection is a prognostic tumoral marker, always depending on the type of cancer and on the type of patients (metastatic or non-metastatic patients); and (ii) CTCs´ genetic and phenotypic analyses give additional information about the tumor progression.