# Evaluation of circulating tumor cell clusters for pan-cancer noninvasive diagnostic triaging

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-trucheck-c-etac-cancer-cytopathol-2021/  
OnCo record `paper-trucheck-c-etac-cancer-cytopathol-2021` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Datar Cancer Genetics' study of 30,060 people reported clumps of tumour-associated cells in the blood of about nine in ten people with cancer and about four in a hundred people without symptoms.

## Summary

Gaya and colleagues harvested circulating ensembles of tumour-associated cells (C-ETACs) from 30,060 people: 9,416 with known cancer, 6,725 symptomatic with suspected cancer and 13,919 asymptomatic. C-ETACs were found in 91.8% of people with known cancer and in 92.6% of the 6,025 symptomatic people diagnosed with cancer; in a subset of 3,509, immunocytochemistry profiles matched histopathology in 93.1%. C-ETACs were undetectable in 95% of 700 symptomatic people with benign conditions and in 96.3% of the 13,919 asymptomatic individuals.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-10-29
- Journal: Cancer Cytopathology
- Year: 2021
- DOI: 10.1002/cncy.22366
- Authors: Gaya A, Crook T, Plowman N, et al.
- Findings: C-ETACs in 91.8% of 9,416 people with known cancer.; Undetectable in 96.3% of 13,919 asymptomatic people (about 3.7% positive).; Profile matched histology in 93.1% of 3,509.
- What it means: If about 3.7% of people without symptoms test positive, most positives in a screening population would not be cancer; the paper does not report how many asymptomatic positives were later diagnosed.
- Caveats: Company-authored.; No stage breakdown or screening positive predictive value in the abstract.

## Sources

- Cancer Cytopathology 2021: https://doi.org/10.1002/cncy.22366
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32996712/

## Connected records

- fronts: [Early Detection & Screening](https://onco.cc/fronts/early-detection/)
- technologies: [Circulating tumour cell capture](https://onco.cc/technologies/ctc-capture/), [Multi-cancer early detection (MCED)](https://onco.cc/technologies/mced/)
- drugs: [Trucheck Intelli](https://onco.cc/drugs/trucheck-intelli/)
- companies: [Datar Cancer Genetics](https://onco.cc/companies/datar-cancer-genetics/)

---
JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/paper-trucheck-c-etac-cancer-cytopathol-2021.json