Meta-analysis Reveals the Prognostic Value of Circulating Tumour Cells Detected in the Peripheral Blood in Patients with Non-Metastatic Colorectal Cancer.

A prognostic role of CTCs in disease survival was also shown in the analysis of studies collecting blood samples at the preoperative point (HR = 3.71, 95% CI = 2.78–4.96, P heterogeneity = 0.903, I 2 = 0.0%), as well as at the postoperative point (HR = 1.47, 95% CI = 0.89–2.42, P heterogeneity = 0.051, I 2 = 52.0%), although the latter did not reach statistical significance.

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When the studies were divided into two groups based on patient number, the pooled results of the group with lower patient numbers (n < 100) failed to reach statistical significance in terms of both disease progression and survival (Table 3 ).

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