Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are metastatic cancer cells in the circulatory system. Researchers have recently realized that CTCs can serve as excellent biomarkers for early cancer detection, which can greatly increase the chances for successful follow up treatment. Among CTC detection methods, a new method called CTC-chip is promising to make future early cancer diagnosis a routine inspection. Using size effect and cell deformability, deformation-based CTC filter is reported to be an inexpensive and effective solution. Cancer cell deformation mechanism is believed to be important in CTC-chip design. Most existing CTC-chips use Young-Laplace model to describe cell deformation. However, the deformation behavior of cancer cell under high velocities is observed to be very different from the static Young-Laplace model according to our present research. In this study, we characterize the detailed cell deformation process when they are passing through CTC microfluidic channels using volume of fluids (VOF) model simulation. Our study provides valuable information for future high throughput CTC chip design.
The method to quantify cell elasticity based on the precise measurement of pressure inducing cell deformation in microfluidic channels