Abstract P3-01-21: Circulating tumor cells of breast cancer origin identified by fluorescence in situ hybridization and may be an early predictor of therapy failure in early breast cancer

Background: Most modern methods of detecting circulating tumor cells (CTCs) involve identifying cells with epithelial markers. This approach presents challenges, as not all epithelial cells found in circulation originate from the tumor and not all CTCs express epithelial markers. We propose using a size-exclusion filtration system to enrich for CTCs in peripheral blood followed by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) of the filtered cells...