Circulating tumoral cells lack circadian-rhythm in hospitalized metastasic breast cancer patients

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The relationship between breast cancer and circadian rhythm variation has been extensively studied. Increased breast tumorigenesis has been reported in melatonin-suppressed experimental models and in observational studies. OBJECTIVES: Circulating Tumor Cells (CTC) circadian- rhythm may optimize the timing of therapies. This is a prospective experimental study to ascertain the day-time and night-time CTC levels in hospitalized metastasic breast cancer (MBC) patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: TC are isolated and enumerated from a 0800 AM and 0800 PM blood collections. 23 MBC and 23 healthy volunteers entered the study. 69 samples were collected (23 samples at 0800 AM and 23 samples at 0800 PM from MBC; 23 samples from healthy volunteers). Results from two patients were rejected due to sample processing errors. No CTC were isolated from healthy-volunteers. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: No-differences between daytime and night-time CTC were observed. Therefore, we could not ascertain CTC circadian-rhythm in hospitalized metastasic breast cancer patients (AU)