Prediction: The New Cancer Treatment

As we all know, current cancer therapy options have a high toxicity level, damaging patients’ cells and the patients’ wellness. This is something that hurts patients, which are already suffering from their disease. Even more, some therapies have higher toxicities and they are less effective depending on the patient. But with so many drugs for cancer to choose from, it is really hard for the physician to make the choice that best fits the patient. Treatments need to be screened to determine which one will be the most effective and less toxic. 

For this, UCLA cancer biologist Alice Soragni and her colleagues developed patient-derived tumor organoids for drug screening. The first step that they took was proving 430 compunds on mini tumors grown from cells extracted from a boy with a rare bone cancer. Eight of the compounds caused 75 percent cell death in the mini tumors. This eight drugs were considered as the most effective and will be used to treat the patient in order to achieve the best results. Also, this year, a London-based team described how a “tumor-in-a-dish” approach successfully predicted drug responses in cancer patients who previously took part in clinical trials. 

In an easy way to understand this project: cancer drugs are tested on a tumor ex vivo and the number of cells that die due to each particular drug is quantified. With this, they can predict the reaction of the cells to the treatment that the patient will receive. 

The method seemed to work for various kinds of ovarian cancer. The lab-grown organoids mimicked how tumors in the body look and behave. 

This researchers took another step forward, applying this approach to sarcomas. Sarcomas are a rare group of particularly hard-to-treat cancers that arise in bones or connective tissue and often spread to the lungs. And, as well, this gave positive results. This ex vivo tests are an efficient way to screen drugs for cancer, making the treatment less painful and giving the patients a better life quality.  

So, in the near future, each cancer patient will have its personalized screening test to see which therapy works best. There is still a road ahead until this reaches the general public. But one day it will become a reality and treatment efficacy, as well as patients’ life quality, will improve tremendously.