Counting tumor cells in blood predicts treatment benefit in prostate cancer

At the ESMO Conference Lugano (ECLU) organized by the European Society for Medical Oncology, researchers showed that counting the number of tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream of patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer can accurately predict how well they are responding to treatment.

The study shows that circulating tumor cell counts could provide information about how patients are responding to therapy earlier than other markers such as prostate-specific antigen (PSA) or time-to-disease progression. Changes in the number of circulating tumor cells predicted the outcome after chemotherapy in this hard to treat cancer.