Simulating the Effect of Removing Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) from Blood Reveals That Only Implantable Devices Can Significantly Reduce Metastatic Burden of Patients
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Date
2024-09-04
Publication Type
Journal Article
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yes
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Abstract
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are cells that have separated from a solid cancerous lesion and entered the bloodstream. They play a crucial role in driving the metastatic spread to distant organs, which is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Various concepts for blood purification devices aiming to remove CTCs from the blood and prevent metastases have been developed. Until now, it is not clear if such devices can indeed reduce new metastasis formation in a significant way. Here, we present a simple theoretical model of CTCs in the bloodstream that can be used to predict a reduction in metastatic burden using an extracorporeal or intracorporeal blood purification device. The model consists of a system of ordinary differential equations that was numerically solved and simulated. Various simulations with different parameter settings of extracorporeal and intracorporeal devices revealed that only devices implanted directly in tumor-draining vessels can reduce the metastatic burden significantly. Even if an extracorporeal device is used permanently, the reduction in metastases is only 82%, while a permanently operating implanted device in the tumor-draining vessel would achieve a reduction of 99.8%. These results are mainly due to the fact that only a small fraction of CTCs reaches peripheral circulation, resulting in a proportionally small amount of purified blood in extracorporeal devices.
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published
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Journal / series
Volume
16 (17)
Pages / Article No.
3078
Publisher
MDPI
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Software
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Date collected
Date created
Subject
Circulating tumor cells; Metastases
Organisational unit
09736 - Aceto, Nicola / Aceto, Nicola