Given the heterogeneous nature of CTCs, EpCAM-based capture approaches are inherently biased toward capturing CTCs with well-preserved epithelial traits and are rarely efficient in epithelial cancers with downregulated EpCAM expression, e.g., during epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), or in cancers of mesenchymal origin (i.e., sarcomas)16–18. This evidence concerns the gene EPCAM and cancer.