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Review
. 2021 Mar 18:11:641980.
doi: 10.3389/fonc.2021.641980. eCollection 2021.

Patient-Derived Cancer Organoids as Predictors of Treatment Response

Maikel Verduin  1 , Ann Hoeben  2 , Dirk De Ruysscher  1 , Marc Vooijs  1
Affiliations
Review

Patient-Derived Cancer Organoids as Predictors of Treatment Response

Maikel Verduin et al. Front Oncol. .

Abstract

Patient-derived cancer organoids have taken a prominent role in pre-clinical and translational research and have been generated for most common solid tumors. Cancer organoids have been shown to retain key genetic and phenotypic characteristics of their tissue of origin, tumor subtype and maintain intratumoral heterogeneity and therefore have the potential to be used as predictors for individualized treatment response. In this review, we highlight studies that have used cancer organoids to compare the efficacy of standard-of-care and targeted combination treatments with clinical patient response. Furthermore, we review studies using cancer organoids to identify new anti-cancer treatments using drug screening. Finally, we discuss the current limitations and improvements needed to understand the full potential of cancer organoids as avatars for clinical management of cancer therapy.

Keywords: cancer; organoids; patient-derived; precision medicine; treatment prediction; treatment response.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Potential applications of cancer organoids to improve treatment prediction and clinical applicability.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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