Fig. 3

The EMT phenotypes of CTCs and their correlations with BC patient feature. a Images of the fluorescence signal of DAPI, CD45, EpCAM/CKs, Vimentin/Twist and merged pattern to characterize the EMT phenotypes of CTCs. Scale bar = 5 μm. b–e Comparison of E-CTCs, H-CTCs, and M-CTCs numbers between clinical subgroups of grading (b), lymph node invasion (c), clinical stage (d) and distant metastasis (e). f ROC curves of E-CTCs, H-CTCs, and M-CTCs in the diagnosis of metastatic BC patients. g Determination of positive threshold for E-CTCs, H-CTCs, and M-CTCs through the Youden index. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 and NS means not significant (P > 0.05)