Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 2
Inertial Migration of Cancer Cells
in a Microfluidic Device
Tatsuya Tanaka, Takuji Ishikawa, Keiko Numayama-Tsuruta,
Yohsuke Imai, Hironori Ueno, Takefumi Yoshimoto, Noriaki Matsuki,
and Takami Yamaguchi
Abstract
The circulating tumor cell (CTC) test is used to evaluate the condition
of breast cancer patients by counting the number of cancer cells in peripheral
blood samples. Although microfluidic systems to detect or separate cells using
the inertial migration effect may be applied to this test, the hydrodynamic forces
acting on cancer cells are incompletely understood. In this chapter, we explain
the inertial migration of cancer cells in microchannels. We also explain fabrica-
tion techniques of microchannels used in the experiments. By measuring the cell
migration probability, we examined the effects of cell deformability and
variations in cell size on the inertial migration of cancer cells. The results clearly
illustrate that cancer cells can migrate towards equilibrium positions in the
similar manner with rigid spheres. These results will be important for the design
of microfluidic devices for the CTC test.
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