Chemotherapy of pancreatic cancers by drug sensitivity test in vitro

Abstract

Objective To investigate the effect of cancer drug sensitivity on the selection of chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer. Methods The cells from the cancer tissues of 156 pancreatic cancer patients were cultured with 6 kinds of chemotherapy drugs in vitro including gemcitabine (GEM), 5 fluorouracil (5-FU), Mitomycin C (MMC), Oxaliplatin (L-OHP) and irrinotecan (CPT-11), according to the in vitro standard of solitary tumor. More than 70% of inhibitory rate was highly sensitive, 50% ～ 70% was moderately sensitive, ＜ 50% was insensitive. The inhibitory rate of chemotherapy drugs were determined by MTT colorimetric assay. Results The pathological findings of the 156 cases of pancreatic cancer were pancreatic duct cancer in 135 cases, adenosquamous carcinoma in 13 cases, mucinous carcinoma in 8 cases.Pancreatic duct cancer was sensitive to all the 6 drugs; adenosquamous carcinoma and mucinous carcinoma was sensitive to all the drugs except for L-OHP and CPT-11, respectively. The inhibitory rate of GEM was higher than that of MMC, L-OHP and CPT-11 (P ＜ 0.05 ) , but there was no difference with 5-FU and DDP ( P ＞0.05 ). There was no difference among the other 5 drugs (P ＞ 0.05 ). However, the cells from different types of pancreatic cancers and the cells from different patients of the same type of pancreatic cancer have different sequence of sensitivity to the 6 kinds of chemotherapy drugs. For pancreatic duct cancer, the sequence of sensitivity was GEM ＞ DDP ＞ 5-FU ＞ CPT-11 ＞ MMC ＞ L-OHP; adenosquamous carcinoma was GEM, CPT-11 ＞ DDP, 5-FU, MMC ＞ L-OHP; mucinous carcinoma was L-OHP ＞ GEM ＞5-FU, MMC ＞ DDP ＞ CPT-11.Conclusions Cancer drug sensitivity test may help to select the fight chemotherapy and be of clinical value. Key words: Pancreatic neoplasms; Colorimetry; Drug monitoring; Chemotherapy