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© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) is a disease characterized by high degrees of heterogeneity at morphologic, genomic, and genetic levels, even within the same tumor mass or among patients. As a consequence, different subpopulations coexist and less represented clones may have a selective advantage, significantly influencing the outcome of BC patients. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) represent a rare population of cells with a crucial role in metastatic cascade, and in recent years have represented a fascinating alternative to overcome the heterogeneity issue as a “liquid biopsy”. However, besides the raw enumeration of these cells in advanced epithelial tumors, there are no CTC-based assays applied in the clinical practice to improve personalized medicine. In this review, we report the latest findings in the field of CTCs for intra-tumoral heterogeneity unmasking in BC, supporting the need to deepen their analysis to investigate their role in metastatic process and include the molecular characterization in the clinical practice. In the future, CTCs will be helpful in monitoring patients during treatment, as well as to better address therapeutic strategies.

Details

Title
Circulating Tumor Cells as a Tool to Untangle the Breast Cancer Heterogeneity Issue
Author
Rossi, Tania 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Gallerani, Giulia 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Martinelli, Giovanni 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Maltoni, Roberta 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Fabbri, Francesco 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Biosciences Laboratory, IRCCS Istituto Romagnolo per lo Studio dei Tumori (IRST) “Dino Amadori”, 47014 Meldola, Italy; [email protected] (G.G.); [email protected] (F.F.) 
 Scientific Directorate, IRCCS Istituto Romagnolo per lo Studio dei Tumori (IRST) “Dino Amadori”, 47014 Meldola, Italy; [email protected] 
 Healthcare Administration, IRCCS Istituto Romagnolo per lo Studio dei Tumori (IRST) “Dino Amadori”, 47014 Meldola, Italy; [email protected] 
First page
1242
Publication year
2021
Publication date
2021
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
22279059
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2576383323
Copyright
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.