循环肿瘤细胞(circulating tumor cells, CTCs) 于1869年被发现和首次报道，但其临床意义尚未得到充分认识。最近20多年来，伴随生命医学研究和技术的快速进展，CTCs的生物学研究日益系统深入，在肿瘤精准和个体化医学中开始展示巨大的应用潜力。为此，文章首先介绍和综述CTCs的基本生物学，包括CTCs和CTC簇的产生、迁移散播、异质性及其与肿瘤进展和转移的关系，而后着重论述循环肿瘤细胞的分离、纯化方法学的原理、技术进展和流程，并综述分离纯化后的分子检测与分析，最后简述和展望CTCs相关技术在肿瘤精准与个体化医疗中的潜在应用。

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) were first discovered in 1869 but the clinical significance was not well appreciated. Over the past two decades, with rapid progresses in their biology and related technologies CTCs have reemerged as a major biomedical advance with great promises in tumor precision medicine. In this article, we start with introducing CTCs, their related CTC clusters and biology—origination, dissemination through circulation, heterogeneity, and their roles in tumor progression and metastasis. We then continue to detail the technological advances with CTC isolation, purification and characterization based on its biology characteristics. In the end, we discuss the potential clinical applications of CTCs in tumor precision and/or personalized medicine.