A clinical evaluation of an organ culture system to predict patient response to cancer therapy.

Introduction: organ cultures (EVOC) were recently optimized to sustain cancer tissue for 5 days with its complete microenvironment. We examined the ability of an EVOC platform to predict patient response to cancer therapy.

Methods: A multicenter, prospective, single-arm observational trial.

Ex vivo organotypic cultures for synergistic therapy prioritization identify patient-specific responses to combined MEK and Src inhibition in colorectal cancer.

Translating preclinical studies to effective treatment protocols and identifying specific therapeutic responses in individuals with cancer is challenging. This may arise due to the complex genetic makeup of tumor cells and the impact of their multifaceted tumor microenvironment on drug response. To find new clinically relevant drug combinations for colorectal cancer (CRC), we prioritized the top five synergistic combinations from a large in vitro screen for ex vivo testing on 29 freshly resected human CRC tumors and found that only the combination of mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (MEK) and proto-oncogene tyrosine-protein kinase Src (Src) inhibition was effective when tested ex vivo.