Abstract

Blood samples can be used as a liquid biopsy in cancer diagnosis and chemotherapy monitoring. This label- free method offers benefits over traditional tissue invasive biopsy. It is possible to separate rare cells from blood samples by Ultrasounds on the basis of their physical properties in a biocompatible manner. A successful separation of cultured cancer cells from WBCs with acoustic-based methods is being demonstrated during the last years through different technological approaches. The concept of plate acoustic waves (PAW) applied to acoustophoresis was recently introduced to perform acoustic flow-through separation of rare cells in blood samples. It lies in the geometrical chip design, different to other micro separators (BAW and SAW). This new strategy allows soft materials of extremely reduced volume and low-cost fabrication and opens a door to printing manufacturing processes.