Detection of Circulating Mammary Carcinoma Cells in the Peripheral Blood of Breast Cancer Patients Via a Nested Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction Assay for Mammaglobin mRNA

In contrast to healthy volunteers, hMAM transcripts were detected in the peripheral blood of BC patients. The percentage of positivity relates to the clinical stages of disease, CEA plasma level, and estrogen receptor status. Aberrant hMAM expression might occur occasionally in malignancies other than BC. The clinical relevance of hMAM RT-PCR-based tumor cell detection in the peripheral blood of BC patients should be further evaluated in prospective studies.