Sysmex develops tech for detection of living tumor cells

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Sysmex Corp has developed a new highly sensitive technology for detecting living tumor cells freely suspended in blood “circulating tumor cells” using a virus that replicates and emits fluorescence in tumor cells (TelomeScan(R)) jointly with Oncolys BioPharma, Inc.

Because circulating tumor cells are considered to be associated with the metastasis of cancer, the above-described technology is expected to be a useful diagnostic tool when choosing the best treatment method and for monitoring the effect of treatment.

The prognosis of a patient with metastatic cancer is very poor. Accordingly, early detection of possible metastasis is crucial in order to select the best treatment method.

Currently, there are test methods for metastasis detection such as the serum tumor marker test and diagnostic imaging (e.g. CT scan). However, the serum tumor marker test is only able to detect cancer by identifying proteins secreted from tumor cells, and diagnostic imaging examines the size of the metastatic focus. Therefore, the size of the metastatic needs to be beyond a certain level, and it is difficult to detect possible metastasis early by using these methods.

It is considered that tumor cells isolated from the tissue of the primary cancer lesion are closely associated with the metastasis and the recurrence of cancer. We have therefore developed a technology to detect living tumor cells suspended in blood by using a virus that replicates and emits fluorescence in tumor cells jointly with Oncolys. It was also confirmed that by using the same technology, a trace amount of living tumor cells could be detected from peripheral blood collected from breast cancer patients.