Micropallet Technology for Investigating Tumor Cellular Profiles and Analysis of Rare Cell Subsets

Rationally designed, individualized therapeutic strategies have long been a desired objective for breast cancer patients and clinicians as an estimated 178,480 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed among women in the United States this year and over 40,000 women are expected to die from the disease. [1] The increasing appreciation of breast tumor cellular heterogeneity raises fundamental questions as to the relative contributions of cellular subsets to the biologic behavior of an individual patient’s tumor. [2] As such, it has become increasingly clear that in many cases, an individualized strategy for the treatment of breast cancer would be of great benefit, and that the ability to isolate relevant cellular subsets from the main tumor population is one of the critical limits to accomplishing this goal.Copyright © 2008 by ASME