GERMANY BLOOD TEST FOR CIRCULATING TUMOR CELLS

atlanticcanada

just wondered if anyone else does the blood test in Germany (not sure if its done anywhere else)
My daughter just got her results back , its for circulating tumor cells. Not sure exactly what it all means, just know it is alot better than her first test.

gdpawel

Circulating Tumor Cell Technology
What I know of CTC technology is that in drug selection, there is a problem with growing or manipulating tumor cells in any way. When looking for cell-death-related events, which mirror the effect of drugs on living tumors, cells are generally not grown or amplified in any way. The object is occurrence of programmed cell death in cells that come into contact with therapeutic agents.

How do you aggregate a sufficient number of cancer cells to make accurate determinations? Detectable tumor cells in the peripheral blood are present only in extremely small numbers. This precludes allowing a sufficient number of cells to incubate for a few days in the presence of chemotherapeutic agents.

Analysis of a relatively small number of isolated cancer cells cannot yield the same quality information as subjecting living cells to chemotherapeutic agents, begging the question of whether or not it can accurately predict which drugs will work and which will not.

CTCs are free-floating cancer cells that can remain in isolation from a tumor for over twenty years. What is the relationship of such long-lasting cells to the tumor cells that need to be attacked through tested substances?

Then there is the question of heterogeneity. The problem is the heterogeneity of all these cell populations is greater than any one thought thus defining and characterizing them is more difficult as is finding them - also finding vital ones - as many if not most are dead or dying - this is one of the reasons why the metastatic process is so inefficient.

Tumors in the body are genetically variable. What is the relationship between CTCs and primary tumors or their already established metastases? It has already been established that the gene expression profile of a metastatic lesion can be different compared to that of the primary.

luvinlife2

Yes
I had it done 2 years ago. I haven't had it done since because it's not been necessary as we know that my chemo and treatments are working (my CEA is dropping). At my clinic, it's used mostly for people who are not on any type of chemo and not seeing an oncologist.

Wonderful news that the 2nd test is better!!! The test measures how many cancer cells are circulating in the blood. A lower number means her treatments are working!!

atlanticcanada

luvinlife2 said:

Yes
I had it done 2 years ago. I haven't had it done since because it's not been necessary as we know that my chemo and treatments are working (my CEA is dropping). At my clinic, it's used mostly for people who are not on any type of chemo and not seeing an oncologist.

Wonderful news that the 2nd test is better!!! The test measures how many cancer cells are circulating in the blood. A lower number means her treatments are working!!

do you know what what a
do you know what what a normal test result should be?
My daughter had just finished 2 surgeries , colon and liver and had the ctc test before she had any chemotherapy.She had only been doing mistletoe injections , iv vitamin c wobe mucos nem and other supplements and of course diet, so it dropped without chemotherapy.Do you know if it it is done while on chemotherapy and if it is more accurate than cea?. i find this test very interesting, thanks

pete43lost_at_sea

my test was genostics
the results are up on the blog.
they have a newer test, i am doing early feb when i get back to germany and more vaccines.

was your test genostics, if you want email it over, i can read them.

i found the hallwang clinic the only doctors who matched my therapies to the results in an effective way. but time will tell. it could be an elabrorate scam, but if a few of us try this and we get intop the tail club , well thats enough. hoping for this anyway.

hugs.
Pete

fatbob2010

WOW
Thank you for sharing this information...I would not have otherwise known about this procedure that seems so useful. Art

coloCan

fatbob2010 said:

WOW
Thank you for sharing this information...I would not have otherwise known about this procedure that seems so useful. Art

some other approaches:
nanowerk.com/news2/newsid=28094.php?
nanoparticles amplify tumor signals,making them much easier to detect in the urine

and either this:

medicalnewstoday.com/releases/253967.php
on new method to capture and preserve CTCs

or:

phys.org/news/2012-12/nanotechnology-scientists-capture-cancer-cells.html

gdpawel

coloCan said:

some other approaches:
nanowerk.com/news2/newsid=28094.php?
nanoparticles amplify tumor signals,making them much easier to detect in the urine

and either this:

medicalnewstoday.com/releases/253967.php
on new method to capture and preserve CTCs

or:

phys.org/news/2012-12/nanotechnology-scientists-capture-cancer-cells.html

Circulating Tumor Cells
The cells that slough off from a cancerous tumor into the bloodstream are a genetically diverse bunch. Some have genes turned on that give them the potential to lodge themselves in new places, helping a cancer spread between organs. Others have completely different patterns of gene expression and might be more benign, or less likely to survive in a new tissue. Even within one patient, the tumor cells that make it into circulating blood vary drastically. Within a single blood draw from a single patient, they are seeing heterogeneous populations of circulating tumor cells (CTCs). Separating CTCs from blood cells is awfully hard, there can be as few as one or two CTCs in every milliliter of a person's blood, mixed among billions of other blood cells. What CTC technology might actually teach us is that it's not that unusual for healthy people to have an occasional cancer cell in their blood. And CTCs can be free-floating cancer cells that can remain in isolation from a tumor for over twenty years.

atlanticcanada

pete43lost_at_sea said:

my test was genostics
the results are up on the blog.
they have a newer test, i am doing early feb when i get back to germany and more vaccines.

was your test genostics, if you want email it over, i can read them.

i found the hallwang clinic the only doctors who matched my therapies to the results in an effective way. but time will tell. it could be an elabrorate scam, but if a few of us try this and we get intop the tail club , well thats enough. hoping for this anyway.

hugs.
Pete

i think the test is called
i think the test is called maintrac ,and the doctor i believe is ulrich pachmann. i will get my daughter to send the report to me and maybe you can interpet them thanks