3D Tumor Model Streamlines Personalized Cancer Treatment

A cancer treatment that works for one person will not necessarily work for another. Side effects and efficacy can vary drastically among individuals, making it hard to determine exactly how a particular treatment will work. To get ahead of this issue, scientists at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland have developed a cell co-culture platform that reproduces a patient’s tumor in 3D. The platform can test several drugs and drug combinations in just five days, identifying those that will work best for an individual patient. The results were published in Scientific Reports.

Colorectal cancer is the third most common form of cancer diagnosed today and the fourth most deadly in the world. A range of options are available for treatment, but these are associated with numerous side effects and resistance is common. Treatments are currently tested in 2D tumor cell cultures, but relevancy of these models to that of a live tumor is limited.

To develop their 3D platform, the UNIGE team selected six cell lines derived from six patients. The cells were stabilized in a hollow, U-shaped culture plate so they would remain agglomerated and floated in the cell culture medium, which was optimized to feed the tumor.

The cultured tumors were then used to test several different combinations of three approved drugs at different tumor developmental phases. For each of the tumor types, the drug combinations provided different effects, demonstrating the variability in patient response to treatment. They also found that overall, low-dose combinations were more effective than one strong treatment.

Creating a tumor from the patient’s own cells opens the door to improvements in personalized cancer treatments. While it was tested on colorectal cancer, it has potential applications for any type of cancer for which multiple treatments are available.