Management of advanced urogenital malignancies has profoundly changed in recent years due to the development of novel targeted drugs that have significantly improved patient's clinical outcomes. This process has been made possible mainly thanks to better knowledge of tumor genetic alterations and molecular altered pathways. Despite these remarkable results, several issues such as early detection of the disease as well as the research into early markers of recurrence or disease progression still remain an open challenge for clinical research. The detection of circulating tumor cells and circulating DNA appears an attractive option since it is a minimally invasive approach potentially able to allow clinicians an accurate diagnosis and maybe lead to more customized treatment strategies. This review focuses on the current techniques adopted for the detection and isolation of circulating tumor cells in genitourinary tumors highlighting their present and possible future application in clinical practice.
Keywords: biomarkers; circulating tumor cells; early diagnosis; prostate cancer; renal cell carcinoma; urothelial cancer.