〔Abstract〕 Objective To study the effect of the circulating tumor cells(CTCs) and the CTCs dopamine receptor 1( DRD1) expression level in peripheral blood of breast cancer patients on breast cancer progression and curative effect monitoring. Methods Peripheral blood was collected from 20 healthy people and 20 untreated breast cancer patients, and CTCs and CTCs DRD1 expression levels of them were detected through the differential phase concentration-immune fluorescence in situ hybridization technique(SE-iFISH) in combination with the fluorescent quantitative PCR(Q-PCR). Then 6 cases of breast cancer were selected for operation, and their peripheral blood was collected at 3 and 6 months after operation, to detect CTCs and CTCs DRD1 expression levels and analyze their relationship with disease progression and curative effect. Results CTCs were not detected in peripheral blood of 20 healthy persons while detected in 18 of 20(90.0%) untreated breast cancer patients, which presented high sensitivity and specificity. CTCs and CTCs DRD1 levels evidently decreased in 3 T2 stage patients 3 months and 6 months after surgery(they did not appear recurrence and metastasis). On the contrary, CTCs and CTCs DRD1 levels evidently increased in 3 T3 stage patients 3 months and 6 months after surgery(they appeared prominent recurrence and metastasis). Conclusion Breast cancer patients with high CTCs detection rate and CTCs DRD1 expression often have poor prognosis. On the contrary, patients with low CTCs detection rate of CTCs and expression of CTCs DRD1 show better disease control and good prognosis. Hence, noninvasive CTCs and CTCs DRD1 detection may have high clinical application value in monitoring the efficacy of breast cancer.