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KMID : 0191120000150020194
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Journal of Korean Medical Science
2000 Volume.15 No. 2 p.194 ~ p.198
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The detection of circulating breast cancer cells in peripheral blood by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction
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Bae JW
Choi KH/Kim HG/Park SH
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Abstract
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Some circulating cancer cells in the blood play a central role in the metastatic process
and may have a major influence on patient progress. Their numbers can be very small and
techniques for their detection need to be both sensitive and specific. Polymerase chain
reaction (PCR) has been successfully used to detect small numbers of tumor cells in cancer.
We used a reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect circulating
breast cancer cells in venous blood samples before operations and assessed cytokeratin-19
(CK-19) and cytokeratin-20 (CK-20) as target mRNA markers in the blood of healthy donors
(n=6) and breast cancer patients (n=30) with American Joint Committee on Cancer stages 0
to IIIa. CK-19 mRNA was expressed in all blood samples of healthy donors and patients. But
CK-20 was the only mRNA marker not detected in the blood from healthy donors. Seven of 30
(23%) venous blood isolates of breast cancer patients yielded a CK-20 mRNA with positive
results. There was no correlating CK-20 mRNA expression with stage and axillary lymph node
status. In conclusion, CK-19 showed no diagnostic value as a mRNA marker in the detection
of circulating cancer cells by RT-PCR assay because this was expressed in the blood of
healthy donors. CK-20 mRNA was an useful marker to detect circulating cancer cells in
breast cancers.
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