Co-expression of putative stemness and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition markers on single circulating tumour cells from patients with early and metastatic breast cancer

Table 3 Incidence of CTC phenotypes according to the co-expression of ALDH1 and TWIST on single CTCs of patients with early and metastatic breast cancer

CTC phenotypes	Patients (%)			Percentage of CTCs per patient (mean; range)			CTCs (%)
	Early	Metastatic	p value	Early	Metastatic	p value	Early	Metastatic
ALDH1high / TWISTnuc	15.4	76.0	0.001	6 (0–50)	64 (0–100)	0.000	12.9	61.5
ALDH1high / TWISTcyt/neg	23.1	24.0	1.000	17 (0–100)	11 (0–100)	0.746	25.8	22.0
ALDH1low/neg / TWISTnuc	30.8	12.0	0.330	23 (0–100)	8 (0–100)	0.152	19.4	8.8
ALDH1low/neg / TWISTcyt/neg	61.5	20.0	0.078	54 (0–100)	16 (0–100)	0.026	41.9	7.7

Chi-square test (Continuity Correction) and Mann Whitney test were used. Only patients with detectable CTCs were included; early setting: 13 patients and 31 CTCs; metastatic setting: 25 patients and 91 CTCs.

ISSN: 1471-2407