EPCAM and colorectal carcinoma: In this regard, multiple EpCAM-independent technologies have been used to investigate CTCs in CRC, including several filter-based enrichment platforms, which exploit the larger size of tumor cells compared to blood cells [32, 33], and a fiber-optic array scanning technology (FAST) that combines immunofluorescent staining with high-throughput imaging to enable cytomorphometric analysis of the CTCs [34].