Isolation of rare cancer cells from blood cells using dielectrophoresis

In this study, we investigate the application of contactless dielectrophoresis (cDEP) for isolating cancer cells from blood cells. Devices with throughput of 0.2 mL/hr (equivalent to sorting 3×10⁶ cells per minute) were used to trap breast cancer cells while allowing blood cells through. We have shown that this technique is able to isolate cancer cells in concentration as low as 1 cancer cell per 10⁶ hematologic cells (equivalent to 1000 cancer cells in 1 mL of blood). We achieved 96% trapping of the cancer cells at 600 kHz and 300 V_RMS.