Disseminated Tumour Cells (Dtcs) in Bone Marrow (BM) of Gastric Cancer Patients with M0 Category: Correlation with Tumour Hypoxia and Clinical Relevance — ASN Events

Disseminated Tumour Cells (Dtcs) in Bone Marrow (BM) of Gastric Cancer Patients with M0 Category: Correlation with Tumour Hypoxia and Clinical Relevance (#311)

Dmytro Osynskyi 1 , Merentsev Sergej 1 , Kovelskaya Antonina 2 , Bubnovskaya Larisa 2 , Osynskyi Sergej 2
  1. Kyiv City Clinical Oncological Center, Kyiv, Ukraine
  2. R.E. Kavetsky Institute of Experimental Pathology, Oncology and Radiobiology, NAS of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine

DTCs are presented in BM in the early stage of tumor that negatively impact on disease outcome, especially in patients with breast, prostate and colorectal tumors. We aimed to evaluate the clinical relevance of DTCs in BM of patients with gastric cancer with category M0. 89 resected specimens were used. DTCs were detected using immunocytochemistry, VEGFR-1 expression in BM and tumor as well as VEGF in tumor – immunocyto- and immunohistochemistry, tumor hypoxia level - by MR spectroscopy. DTCs were found in BM of 51% patients with category М0. among them 75% of patients have tumor with severe and middle hypoxia. The presence of DTCs were accompanied by Flt-1-positivity of BM in 67% of cases. The probability of DTCs presence in BM of patients with category M0 is increased by a factor of 11.4 (Odds ratio 11.4; 95% CI 2.71-47.89; p<0.001) when tumor is characterized by severe and middle hypoxia. Overall survival (OS) of patients with category M0 with DTCs in BM was significantly shorter (p=0.0497) than that in patients without DTCs (patients in both groups were operated only). OS of patients with DTCs and Flt-1-positive BM was significantly shorter than that of patients without DTCs but with Flt-1 positive BM (p=0.0437). It is suggested that monitoring of DTCs in gastric cancer patients may be relevant for personalised cancer therapy.