A microfluidic platform integrated with field-effect transistors for detection of circulating tumor cells

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) were regarded as a useful tool for cancer diagnosis and prognosis monitoring. In this work, an automatic microfluidic platform was developed for detection of CTCs by integrating field-effect transistor (FET) arrays. Additionally, a cancer cell-specific aptamer which has high selectivity was used as an affinity reagent to capture CTCs. With this approach, automatic capturing and counting of cancer cells in the sample could be achieved.