Abstract: Objective To investigate the correlation between positive rate of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and clinicopathologic features in patients with operable breast cancer. Methods From January to September in 2014, 73 operable breast cancer patients in Chinese PLA General Hospital were enrolled in this study. Their CTCs were analyzed before adjuvant chemotherapy using CellSearch system, and the relationship between CTCs and clinicalpathologic characteristics of primary tumor, prognosis was analyzed. Results The detection rate of CTCs in patients with operable breast cancer was 16.4%, and the detection rate of patients with tumor diameter greater than 5 cm in CTCs positive and negative group were 25% and 3.3% with statistically significant difference (P=0.036). Tumor size was independent risk factor for CTCs detection rate (OR=2.024，P< 0.05). The 1-year disease free survival (DFS) in CTCs positive and negative patients were 80.8% and 100% with statistically significant difference (P=0.01). Conclusion Tumor size is the only primary tumor characteristic that correlates with the presence of CTCs in patients with operable breast cancer. However, the relationship between CTCs and prognosis is not clear, long-term follow-up will be required to investigate the significance of CTCs in operable breast cancer.