Prognostic and predictive blood biomarkers in gastric cancer and the potential application of circulating tumor cells

Figure 1 Flow chart of current and potential applications of circulating tumor cell. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs): The blood samples from cancer patients are processed through various isolation/enrichment and detection techniques. CTCs are usually captured along with contaminating leukocytes. Various detection methods are utilized to detect the rare cell population in the bloodstream.