LDHA and neoplasm: As shown in Table 4, 9 of the 10 patients who were positive for CD44+CD133+ALDH+ CTCs had ascites and unresectable disease at initial diagnosis, and among those who underwent histological examination, only one patient had non-serous cancer; this observation may be due both to the predominance of patients with unfavorable clinical characteristics in our cohort and to the association between the tumor extent within the abdominal cavity and stem cell shedding.