Dr. Rebecca Miksad
The area under a receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.84 (P less than .001), indicating good discrimination between patients with and without metastases.
A subset of seven patients with presumed stage II disease based on preoperative imaging were found to have liver metastases at the time of surgery. In five of them, preoperative blood samples showed at least two CTCs/2 mL, predicting metastatic disease.
"This indicates that CTCs may be potentially useful in predicting preoperative metastasis and directing patients toward more appropriate therapies while having them avoid potentially morbid surgery," Dr. Ankeny commented.
In a final analysis, CTCs were superior to CA 19-9 for discriminating between locoregional disease and metastatic disease, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.87 (P less than .001) vs. 0.69 (P = .06).
Dr. Ankeny disclosed no relevant conflicts of interest. Dr. Miksad disclosed no relevant conflicts of interest.