ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Breast Cancer
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1686166
This article is part of the Research TopicExploring the Breast Tumor Microenvironment: Association to Metastasis, Novel Risk Factors and Novel Treatments and Immunotherapies: Volume II.View all 13 articles
Evaluating Metastatic Risk in Breast Cancer Through CTCs and L1CAM Expression
Provisionally accepted
Ni LiaoQiong GuoJingjing ChenFulan TanYan HuangJiansheng YiYi HuChen ZengQianhui OuyangZhouxi Chen
Wei Zhou*- The Affiliated Zhuzhou Hospital of Xiangya Medical College CSU, Zhuzhou, China
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This study investigates the role of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and the positivity rate of L1 cell adhesion molecule (L1CAM) in predicting lymph node metastasis in early-stage invasive breast cancer (ESIBC). By analyzing preoperative peripheral blood samples from 93 patients using RNA-ISH to detect L1CAM-positive signals, we assessed the correlation of CTC phenotypes and L1CAM positivity with clinicopathological features. Our findings revealed that hybrid CTCs (H-CTCs) and L1CAM-positive CTCs are significantly associated with lymph node metastasis and high Ki-67 levels. A predictive nomogram model incorporating these variables achieved excellent accuracy, underscoring its potential utility in preoperative metastatic risk evaluation.
Keywords: circulating tumor cells, Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition, L1 Cell AdhesionMolecule, breast cancer, lymph node metastasis, prognostic biomarker
Received: 15 Aug 2025; Accepted: 13 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liao, Guo, Chen, Tan, Huang, Yi, Hu, Zeng, Ouyang, Chen and Zhou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Wei Zhou, zwtwozf@163.com
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