Biosensing of Circulating Tumor Cells With a Microcavity Embedded With Pico-Porous Nanostructured Chips

Circulating rare cells (CRCs) in the peripheral blood are considered crucial cells in pathological phenomena. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) detach from solid tumors via blood transport and play a crucial role in cancer metastasis, which is the primary focus of CRCs research. Therefore, a simple and cost-effective device for capturing and culturing CTCs is required for pathological analysis. This study proposes a new biosensing device that includes a pair of surface-modified pico-porous nanostructured chips with a large cross-section and contact area. Compared to traditional narrow microfluidics, this study features a lower shear stress force, resulting in less damage to the captured cells (less than 5%). In addition, unlike devices with non-nanostructured silicon chips, this microcavity biosensing device can provide approximately ten times the cell capture rate and maintain the captured cells as living cells. Another important point to note is that captured live cells can be cultured for up to 18 days or longer. Computer-aided cell image recognition was utilized to minimize human misjudgment and to reduce the analysis time to less than 30 minutes. The novelty of this research is the improved capture rate of CTCs and the prolonged survival time of cells in culture achieved through the utilization of the newly proposed device.