Paper Commentary: Microsieve lab-chip device for rapid enumeration and fluorescence in situ hybridization of circulating tumor cells - Lab on a Chip (RSC Publishing)

Microsieve lab-chip device for rapid enumeration and fluorescence in situ hybridization of circulating tumor cells - Lab on a Chip (RSC Publishing)

Summary:

This paper is among several that use the perforated membranes to capture CTCs. The premise is that there is a clear size and deformability difference between tumor and non-tumor cells. This premise is contested.

The main issue with this approach is that its always a tradeoff between capture efficiency and purity. Quoted from manuscript "Physical size separations could potentially undercount a small portion of CTCs

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The size filtration is combined with a tweaked metamorph image classification algorithm for automated image analysis.  

similar to automated microscopes and algorithms offered by Bioview and Ikonisys.

Advantages:

• A generic advantage of filtration schemes is "fast" and "cheap". 

Limitations:

• • In comparison with polymer based filters, silicon filters are much more expensive.
  • the key limitation of filtration schemes is their inherent trade-off between recovery and purity
  • A wide variety of cell types and tumor types should be used to demonstrate broader utility of this device
  • cells undergoing EMT also undergo structural and biomechanical adaption to allow passage through blood vessels thus may be missed by physical property based approaches