Although circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in blood have been widely investigated as a potential biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis of metastatic cancer, their inherent rarity and heterogeneity bring tremendous challenges to develop a CTC detection method with clinically significant specificity and sensitivity. With advances in nanotechnology, a series of new methods that are highly promising have emerged to enable or enhance detection and separation of CTCs from blood. In this review, we systematically categorize nanomaterials, such as gold nanoparticles, magnetic nanoparticles, quantum dots, graphenes/graphene oxides, and dendrimers and stimuli-responsive polymers, used in the newly developed CTC detection methods. This will provide a comprehensive overview of recent advances in the CTC detection achieved through application of nanotechnology as well as the challenges that these existing technologies must overcome to be directly impactful on human health.
© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.