An integrated microfluidic platform to detect tumor cells from bile juice of cholangiocarcinoma patients by using novel affinity reagents

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) has been known with challenging features, including high prevalence, late diagnosis, difficult prognosis, high recurrence, and repeated metastasis. Detection of CCA cells in liquid biopsy is a promising method for early diagnosis, especially from circulating blood. Despite the blood samples, detecting tumor cells directly from in-situ body fluids may provide straightforward evidences for clinical diagnosis and prognosis. With the high specific and reliable affinity reagents (aptamers and glycosaminoglycan), the present study demonstrated a new microfluidic platform capable of pretreating a small amount of bile juice, capturing tumor cells and staining the isolated cells.