We present a critical review of microfluidic technologies and material effects on the analyses of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) selected from the peripheral blood of cancer patients. CTCs are a minimally invasive source of clinical information that can be used to prognose patient outcome, monitor minimal residual disease, assess tumour resistance to therapeutic agents, and potentially screen individuals for the early diagnosis of cancer. The performance of CTC isolation technologies depends on microfluidic architectures, the underlying principles of isolation, and the choice of materials. We present a critical review of the fundamental principles used in these technologies and discuss their performance. We also give context to how CTC isolation technologies enable downstream analysis of selected CTCs in terms of detecting genetic mutations and gene expression that could be used to gain information that may affect patient outcome.

中文翻译：

---

材料和微流控：可有效分离和分析循环中的肿瘤细胞

我们提出微流控技术和对从癌症患者外周血中选择的循环肿瘤细胞（CTC）进行分析的物质影响的重要综述。CTC是临床信息的微创来源，可用于预测患者预后，监测最小残留疾病，评估肿瘤对治疗剂的耐药性以及潜在地筛查个体以进行癌症的早期诊断。CTC隔离技术的性能取决于微流控架构，隔离的基本原理以及材料的选择。我们对这些技术中使用的基本原理进行了严格的审查，并讨论了它们的性能。