Table 2 CTC measurements from blood and cell-free DNA quantity in plasma are lower in healthy controls and benign breast disease patients than in metastatic breast cancer

	Healthy controls	Benign breast disease patients	Metastatic breast cancer patients
Cell-free DNA 96-bp (ng ml⁻¹)
No. of patients	34	51	31
Mean	0.24	0.54	3.5
95% Confidence interval	0.09–0.63	0.27–1.07	1.48–8.29
Median	0.86	1.27	2.45
Range	0–4.52	0–8.36	0.03–1044
Cell-free DNA 291-bp (ng ml⁻¹)
No. of patients	34	51	31
Mean	0.24	0.44	3.5
95% Confidence interval	0–0.20	0.1–0.40	0–1.5
Median	0	0.22	0.44
Range	0–1.37	0–1.94	0–602
Cell-free DNA integrity ^a
No. of patients	34	51	31
Mean	0.10	0.28	0.21
95% Confidence interval	0–0.13	0.11–0.25	0–0.34
Median	0	0.2	0.07
Range	0–0.39	0–0.49	0–0.83
Circulating tumour cells ^b
No. of patients	29	28	8
Volume of blood measured	22.5 ml	22.5 ml	7.5 ml
Mean	0.03	0.29	24
95% Confidence interval	0.04–0.11	0.09–0.66	7.29–55.29
Median	0	0	9
Range	0–1	0–5	0–109
No. of patients with CTCs^c	1 (3%)	4 (14%)	6 (75%)

Abbreviation: CTC=circulating tumour cell.
^aCalculated as the ratio of the 96-bp and 291-bp amplicons (291-bp/(291-bp+96-bp)).
^bDetected with the CellSearch system.
^cSamples were considered positive for CTCs when at least one cell was detected per total sample volume.

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