Cancer cells in blood can identify risk of recurrence in breast cancer

Cancer cells circulating in the blood, or circulating tumour cells (CTCs), are known to be associated with a bad prognosis in women with metastatic breast cancer. Now, for the first time, a group of scientists have shown that they can also detect CTCs before and after chemotherapy treatment and hence may be able to identify those patients likely to have a recurrence of their cancer after such treatment in future.