Ovarian cancer is the most aggressive form of gynecological malignancy and ranks among the leading causes of cancer-related death in women, both globally and in Slovenia. In this master’s thesis, we successfully isolated circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from the peripheral blood of twenty patients diagnosed with high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC), FIGO stages III and IV, using the Parsortix technology. The main objective of the study was to perform a morphological evaluation of CTCs and to assess their correlation with clinicopathological features of the disease. Through immunocytochemistry and immunofluorescence, we confirmed pronounced heterogeneity among CTCs, reflecting the biological complexity of these cells and their potential role in metastasis. We identified a statistically significant correlation between the number of CTCs and the number of CTC clusters, suggesting that clustering may be an important indicator of tumor activity. Although there were no statistically significant differences in the median CTC count between FIGO stage III and IV patients, the data indicated a trend toward higher values in stage IV. Statistically significant differences in nuclear size, surface area, and perimeter of CTCs across FIGO stages further support the presence of morphological heterogeneity associated with disease progression.
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