New tool to track circulating cancer cells

Cancerous tumours are known to release cells into the bloodstream, and it is these circulating tumour cells or CTCs that are the sources of metastatic tumours – tumours that spread and form in distant locations in the body.In fact, most patients who succumb to cancer do not die because of the initial tumours that form, but rather because of the deadly secondary metastatic tumours that appear at distant sites.As a result, understanding the biology and clinical relevance of these traveling c