Macrophages in a liquid biopsy Available to Purchase

A physician typically turns to an invasive biopsy—the removal of tissue—to determine if a tumor is benign or malignant and, if the latter, to identify the stage of the disease. In many cancer patients, cells leave the tumor, enter the bloodstream, and sometimes engender a new tumor elsewhere. Those circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are showing potential for a so-called liquid biopsy in a routine blood draw, as detailed by Chwee Teck Lim and Dave Hoon in Physics Today, February 2014, page 26. Now Daniel Adams of Creatv MicroTech in Rockville, Maryland, and colleagues at several medical centers report using a gentle, low-pressure filtration system that caught not only CTCs but, to their surprise, some previously unknown fellow travelers they dubbed circulating cancer-associated macrophage-like cells (CAMLs). A macrophage is a shape-shifting cell found in the immune system—and in tumors—that can either repair or destroy other cells depending on the...