Identify the Clinicopathological Characteristics of Lung Carcinoma Patients Being False Negative in Folate Receptor Based Circulating Tumor Cell Detection

Abstract In lung cancer diagnosis, folate receptor (FR)–based circulating tumor cell (CTC) has shown its ability to distinguish malignancy from benign disease to some extent. However, there are still some patients that cannot be identified by FR‐based CTC detection. And studies comparing the characteristics between true positive (TP) and false negative (FN) patients are few. Thus, the study comprehensively analyzes the clinicopathological characteristics of FN and TP patients in the current study. According to inclusion and exclusion criteria, 3420 patients are enrolled. Combining the pathological diagnosis with CTC results, patients are divided into FN and TP groups, and clinicopathological characteristics are compared between two groups. Compared with TP patients, FN patients have smaller tumor, early T stage, early pathological stage, and without lymph node metastasis. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation status is different between FN and TP group. And this result is also demonstrated in lung adenocarcinoma subgroup but not in lung squamous cell carcinoma subgroup. Tumor size, T stage, pathological stage, lymph node metastasis, and EGFR mutation status may influence the accuracy of FR‐based CTC detection in lung cancer. However, further prospective studies are needed to confirm the findings.