A new approach for realizing the “antioncogram”

Abstract

On the basis of an organoid culture method which allows organoid reorganization and histotypical growth of human carcinomas under in vitro conditions, we propose in the present study an organoid culture assay (OCA) as “antioncogram”, i.e., as in vitro model for testing the drug sensitivity and resistance of individual patients' carcinomas previous to clinical chemotherapy. At the beginning of the assay, specimens of human carcinomas are disaggregated to dense single cell suspensions and dropped on a filter sheet at the air-medium interface. Organoid culture nodules develop within several days to weeks. They are exposed to cytostatics by adding the drugs for 2–3 days to the growth medium below the filter sheet. At the end of the exposure period, the cytotoxic effects are estimated by determining the fraction of viable cells, measured by the uptake of neutral red in relation to the total cell mass. In the present study we could show that this assay actually reflects the different levels of experimentally induced resistance of three human carcinoma strains of an epidermoid hypopharynx carcinoma to the cytostatic drug cisplatin and is obviously suited to predict the response of individual human carcinomas to chemotherapy in a rapid and feasible manner.