Detection of circulating tumor cells in cervical cancer using a conditionally replicative adenovirus targeting telomerase-positive cells.

Circulating tumor cells (CTC) are newly discovered biomarkers of cancers. Although many systems detect CTC, a gold standard has not yet been established. We analyzed CTC in uterine cervical cancer patients using an advanced version of conditionally replicative adenovirus targeting telomerase-positive cells, which was enabled to infect coxsackievirus-adenovirus receptor-negative cells and to reduce false-positive signals in myeloid cells. Blood samples from cervical cancer patients were hemolyzed and infected with the virus and then labeled with fluorescent anti-CD45 and anti-pan cytokeratin antibodies. GFP (+)/CD45 (-) cells were isolated and subjected to whole-genome amplification followed by polymerase chain reaction analysis of human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA. CTC were detected in 6 of 23 patients with cervical cancers (26.0%). Expression of CTC did not correlate with the stage of cancer or other clinicopathological factors. In 5 of the 6 CTC-positive cases, the same subtype of HPV DNA as that of the corresponding primary lesion was detected, indicating that the CTC originated from HPV-infected cancer cells. These CTC were all negative for cytokeratins. The CTC detected by our system were genetically confirmed. CTC derived from uterine cervical cancers had lost epithelial characteristics, indicating that epithelial marker-dependent systems do not have the capacity to detect these cells in cervical cancer patients.

FDG-PET-positive ovarian thecoma with GLUT5 expression: Five cases.

Positron emission tomography (PET) with fluorodeoxyglucose F18 (18 F-FDG) is useful for detecting malignancies, but benign lesions occasionally have false-positive 18 F-FDG uptake. Here, we report the cases of five postmenopausal women with solid ovarian tumors suspected to be ovarian cancer on magnetic resonance imaging and 18 F-FDG uptake. Mean age of the five patients was 57 years (range, 53-65 years). Average early standardized uptake value (SUV) of 18 F-FDG was 5.76 (range, 2.2-12.0) and delayed SUV was 6.56 (range, 2.4-13.8). In all five patients, frozen section diagnosis at surgery was thecoma, and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy was performed. On immunohistochemistry, immunoreactive glucose transporter 5 (GLUT5) expression was detected in thecoma tissues. This case shows that thecoma sometimes has positive 18 F-FDG uptake on positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT), indicating the need for caution regarding false-positive PET-CT in patients with benign solid ovarian tumor.