Tumor ‘organoids’ may speed cancer treatment
A new method can quickly test hundreds of drugs on mini tumors grown from patients’ own cells
SAN DIEGO — Collecting cancer cells from patients and growing them into 3-D mini tumors could make it possible to quickly screen large numbers of potential drugs for ultra-rare cancers. Preliminary success with a new high-speed, high-volume approach is already guiding treatment decisions for some patients with recurring hard-to-treat cancers.
“Believe it or not, for some rare cancers there is no standard of care,” UCLA cancer biologist Alice Soragni said December 12 at a joint meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology and the European Molecular Biology Organization. “What if we could go back and tell the doctor, ‘Hey this combination of therapies worked really well for this specific patient?’”