Author : Neha Madgulkar and S. P. Wadkar

Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) plays an important role in detection of cancer at early stage. CTCs indicate presence of tumor at primary stage or even in metastases. Separation of CTCs from blood is highly sensitive and difficult task as they are extremely rare (i.e., 1-5 CTCs per 109erythrocytes). There are some biochemical and physical methods to detect and separate CTCs from blood. To get pure and sensitive CTCs microfluidic lateral flow filtration (μ-LaFF) chip can be used. For separating CTCs gently lateral flow and vertical flow are combined in (μ-LaFF) chip. With the help of this method CTCs can be detected efficiently. And it becomes very easy to diagnose the cancer at early stage.

Keywords: Circulating tumor cells(CTCs), Lateral flow filtration, Microfluidics