Abstract CN07-01: Using CTCs to improve outcomes in SCLC: Single cell profiling, ex vivo cultures, and mouse models

There is increasing agreement that minimally invasive biomarkers to monitor patients receiving targeted therapies have significant potential to facilitate personalized medicine. The rarity and heterogeneity of CTCs make them a technically demanding source of biomarkers but one that holds great promise as the technical challenges are met. Marker independent technology platforms are in development which will better assess CTC subpopulations, but none so far have been fully validated for clinical trial use and treatment decision-making. CTC enumeration with CellSearch (EpCam and cytokeratin positive CTCs) has prognostic significance in many epithelial tumors, and in diseases with prevalent CTCs such as small cell lung cancer (SCLC) the dynamic range of CTC number allows pharmacodynamic evaluation. Biomarkers based on multiplex protein analysis and FISH are also evaluable in CTCs if sufficient can be detected. Examples of CTC based biomarkers in clinical trials will be presented.Developments in single CTC isolation and genomic profiling are increasingly reported by allowing insight to the biology of invasive tumor cells, including cellular co-expression of cancer specific mutations. I will present our progress in DNA profiling of single SCLC CTCs, and how this approach may inform on inter- and intratumor heterogeneity, and via serial sampling, on mechanisms of drug resistance. Most recently, we developed lung cancer patient CTC derived mouse models (termed CDX). SCLC CDX models f...
Source: Molecular Cancer Therapeutics - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Tags: Biomarkers: Oral Presentations - Invited Abstracts Source Type: research