Table_1_Microfluidic Assaying of Circulating Tumor Cells and Its Application in Risk Stratification of Urothelial Bladder Cancer.docx

Bladder cancer is characterized by its frequent recurrence and progression. Effective treatment strategies need to be based on an accurate risk stratification, in which muscle invasiveness and tumor grade represent the two most important factors. Traditional imaging techniques provide preliminary information about muscle invasiveness but are lacking in terms of accuracy. Although as the gold standard, pathological biopsy is only available after the surgery and cannot be performed longitudinally for long-term surveillance. In this work, we developed a microfluidic approach that interrogates circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the peripheral blood of bladder cancer patients to reflect the risk stratification of the disease. In a cohort of 48 bladder cancer patients comprising 33 non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) cases and 15 muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) cases, the CTC count was found to be considerably higher in the MIBC group compared with the NMIBC group (4.67 vs. 1.88 CTCs/3 mL, P=0.019), and was significantly higher in high-grade bladder cancer patients verses low-grade bladder cancer patients (3.69 vs. 1.18 CTCs/3mL, P=0.024). This microfluidic assay of CTCs is believed to be a promising complementary tool for the risk stratification of bladder cancer.

膀胱癌以其频繁的复发和进展为特征。有效的治疗策略需基于精确的风险分层，其中肌层侵犯程度和肿瘤分级是两个最重要的因素。传统的影像学技术虽然能提供关于肌层侵犯的初步信息，但在准确性方面存在不足。尽管病理活检作为金标准，仅在手术之后才能进行，且无法进行纵向的长期监测。在本研究中，我们开发了一种微流控方法，通过检测膀胱癌患者的周围血液中的循环肿瘤细胞（CTCs），以反映疾病的风险分层。在一组包含33例非肌层侵犯性膀胱癌（NMIBC）和15例肌层侵犯性膀胱癌（MIBC）的48例膀胱癌患者队列中，发现MIBC组的CTC计数显著高于NMIBC组（4.67 vs. 1.88 CTCs/3 mL，P=0.019），且在高级别膀胱癌患者中显著高于低级别膀胱癌患者（3.69 vs. 1.18 CTCs/3mL，P=0.024）。这种CTCs的微流控检测被认为是有望成为膀胱癌风险分层的辅助工具。