Study Shows Circulating Tumor Cell Count May Determine High or Low Mortality Risk in Prostate Cancer Patients

According to a recent article in MedPage Today, "an elevated circulating tumor cell count at baseline identified patients with an increased mortality risk, Howard Scher, M.D., of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues reported in the Feb. 11 issue of The Lancet Oncology.

Changes in cell count also predicted response to therapy and mortality risk, beginning as early as four weeks after treatment.

If corroborated in other studies, the findings could have implications for drug development.

"Multiple prospective randomized trials powered to show clinical benefit for patients are needed to show whether biomarkers such as circulating tumor cells are useful as measures of risk and as intermediate endpoints," the authors said."

Read the rest of the article at Med Page Today