Circulating Tumor Cells in Men Treated for Prostate Cancer

Despite the advancements in prostate cancer treatments, a significant proportion of men with higher risk features (approximately 25-50%) ultimately experience treatment failure. This highlights the urgent need for improved prognostic and predictive biomarkers capable of identifying patients with localized prostate cancer at risk of developing metastasis. One of the established surrogate markers for metastatic disease is circulating tumor cells (CTCs). This chapter discusses the challenges associated with clinical assessment of prostate cancer risk and describes the available CTCs detection methods along with strategies to overcome the limitations of the CTCs analysis. Additionally, it presents a pilot study that examines the response of CTCs to radiotherapy. In conclusion, patients with clinically localized prostate cancer typically have very low levels of CTCs in the circulation. Overcoming the technical challenges in using CTCs as a liquid biopsy to assess risk or monitor therapy in this patient population remains an active area of research.