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Robert E. Madden, MD; Charles M. Karpas, MD

AMA Arch Surg. 1967;94(3):307-312.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

THERE have been numerous reports in recent years on the findings of cancer cells in the peripheral blood of patients with malignancy.^1-3 It was suggested that the presence of these cells reflected the biological activity of the tumor and portended a limited prognosis.⁴ Follow-up studies, however, have failed to confirm this initial supposition and the estimated prognostic value of circulating tumor cells has been substantially reduced.^5,6 Reexamination of the slide material would probably reduce the percentage of positive findings originally reported.⁷ Furthermore the disappearance rate of such cells from the blood as has been demonstrated in animal studies is very rapid.^8,9 This would tend to reduce the importance of finding tumor cells in any given blood sample since the positive sample would reflect more a fortuitous time sequence than a steady clinical state of malignant cytemia. Undoubtedly most circulating tumor cells are rapidly arrested but . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
New York

From the departments of surgery and pathology, New York Medical College, New York.

Footnotes
Submitted for publication Nov 9, 1966.

Reprint requests to New York Medical College, 1249 Fifth Ave, New York 10029 (Dr. Madden).

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