One of the most hopeful developments in cancer field, has been the advent of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) which acts as an important prognostic biomarker of the metastasis. CTCs can be used for patient diagnosis and prognosis, as well as subsequent monitoring of treatment efficacy in cancer patients. Additionally, CTCs can be identified early in the progression of cancer which can be used for initial cancer detection and for anti-cancer treatment. Currently, CTC enumeration is an accepted prognostic indicator for breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer. But various study are going on other cancers besides these three to validate the role of CTCs in diagnostic and prognostic value of metastasis. In recent years, the focus of the researchers has shifted from CTCs enumeration to CTC enrichment and detection which holds great potential for predicting prognosis of cancers. Various detection technologies and devices have been developed to enumerate and characterize CTCs. Most of those approaches are based on the positive enrichment strategy and immune-cytological techniques. Here in this review, we focuses on the various techniques available for the enrichment and detection of CTCs as well as its potential applications in management of various tumors.