Table 1. Detailed information about tissue samples used in this study.

Sample	Tissue type/origin	Duration of cultivation		Slices acquired with	Fixation time
**200111	Carcinoma of the larynx	5 h, 6d	Method establishment	Vibratome	None (tissue not cultivated)
**190411	Carcinoma of the trachea	1d, 2d, 6d, 9d, 12d	Method establishment	Vibratome	24 h
**270611	Carcinoma of the tonsil	6d	See data (Figures 1A and 1B)	Vibratome	24 h
**080611	Metastasis of an oropharyngeal carcinoma	5d, 7d	See data (Figure 1B)	Vibratome	48 h
**120911	Metastasis of a carcinoma of the tonsil	6d	See data (Figure 3)	Tissue chopper	18 h
**071111	Carcinoma of the base of tongue	3d, 6d	See data (Figures 1C and 5)	Tissue chopper	24 h
**070512	Carcinoma of the larynx	4d	Method/analysis establishment	Tissue chopper	24–48 h
**160512	Carcinoma of the base of tongue	4d	Method/analysis establishment	Tissue chopper	24–48 h
**240512	Carcinoma of the base of tongue	4d	Method/analysis establishment	Tissue chopper	24–48 h
**020712	Metastasis of a supraglottic carcinoma	3d, 5d	See data (Figure 4)	Tissue chopper	24–48 h
**040713	Carcinoma of the pharynx	3d, 5d	See data (Figures 1A and 1C)	Tissue chopper	24 h
**040713	Metastasis of a carcinoma of the pharynx	3d, 5d	See data (Figures 1A, 2A and 2B)	Tissue chopper	24 h

This table presents the type of the tumour tissues used in this study, the duration of cultivation, the cutting method, the use of each tumour and where the data are shown as well as the fixation time.

The approach in our study was the following: We first tested vibratome sections (samples **200111, **190411, **270611 and **080611) of which only three could be kept in culture with good preservation until day 6 (**200111, **270611, **080611). As we found evident deterioration at day 7 in sample **080611, we did not focus any longer on establishing a maximal survival time for individual tumours. Our reasoning was that for the purpose of the method, it is much more important to establish a minimum survival time suitable to test drug effects. We found that slices cut with a tissue chopper were faster to obtain and more uniform in thickness and exhibited very good tissue preservation until day 6. Therefore, we looked at the effects of treatments on day 4 (samples **070512, **160512 and **240512) or – if there was enough tissue – on days 3 and 5 (samples **020712, **040713TM and **040713Met).