[Lani]

I don't think you can "get " the oncologist to test your bone marrow as it is not standard of care.

There are German studies showing those who had residual cells in the bone marrow after chemotherapy were at exceedingly greater risk of recurring

The problem is that most hospitals are not geared toward the correct processing of the bone marrow samples. Clarient is from what I understand and I believe they are now using the services of Biocept to phenotype the positive DTC) ie, tell if they are ER+,PR+ her2+ and look for other biomarkers in order to help guide further treatment

Until more trials are done, they will not develop the expertise in bone marrow processing and testing and confirming efficacy/need of different/additional treatments

But unless they look, this will never move forward and people will continue to get excessive/ wrong/ insufficient treatment and have to wait years to find out
at which point treatment is much less likely to be successful

CTCs sound great as a substitute for DTC testing , but have not panned out yet, and may not ever do so--too many technologies, may not reflect those cells which can actually start macrometastases, very heterogenous group of cells found, etc