Fig. 5

Relevance of CTCs test with the progression-free survival (PFS) of BC patients. a Comparison of disease progression ratios between patients with positive and negative CTCs test (tCTCs, E-CTCs, H-CTCs, M-CTCs, and GM⁺CTCs). b The Hazard ratio (HR) with 95% CI of the CTCs parameters and pathological characteristics for the PFS of BC patients based on Cox regression analysis. c–g Kaplan–Meier plot analysis for PFS according to different levels of tCTCs (c), M-CTCs (d), GM⁺CTCs (e), E-CTCs (f) and H-CTCs (g). *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 and NS means not significant (P > 0.05)