fig2

Figure 2. Bubble representation of the most important clinical trials (name of first author and year of publication) assessing the association between CTCs, ctDNA detection and prognosis. The data are retrieved from original manuscripts and shown in respect of the 5 main management timepoints of early breast cancer (neoadjuvant treatment, surgery, adjuvant treatment, 2 years follow-up, 5 years follow-up). Bubble size represents the number of analyzed patients. Bubble color represents a statistical association between detection and either worse disease-free survival or worse overall survival (green = significant association, red = not significant association). X-axis represents the treatment time frame for which data from the study refers to. Y-axis represents the year of publication: closer to the x axis are the most recent trials. CTCs: circulating tumor cells; ctDNA: circulating tumor DNA. *Bubbles dimension resized by a factor of 3. Figure references: Silva ’02^[24], Rothe ’19^[25], Murillas ’15^[26], Murillas ’19^[27], Chen ’17^[28], Radovich ’20^[29], Coombes ’19^[31], Xenidis ’06^[35], Rack ’14^[36], Pierga ’08^[37], Lucci ’12^[38], Pierga ’17^[40], Trapp ’19^[42], Bidard ’09^[44], Hall ’15^[48], Riethdorf ’17^[74], Sparano ’18^[76], Bidard ’13^[73], Bauer ’16^[78]