A Model for the Detection of Circulating Tumor Cells Based on Micro-OCT Imaging

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) escape from the primary tumor site, then shed to the circulating system and travel around the body through the bloodstream before initiating metastatic tumors. However, CTCs in the circulatory system are rare, which makes it challenging to isolate and observe. Here, we aim to provide a feasible model to observe CTCs with high-resolution Optical Coherence Tomography (μOCT) in microfluidics, simulating the blood flow in vascular. CTCs are enriched and sorted by our microfluidic system. We obtained high-resolution CTCs' OCT images with the indication of fluorescent labeling for the data collection for real-time diagnostic system construction.