Table 1.

Overview of spheroid models.

Main cancer type	Purpose and application	Patient numbers	Method	Maximum culture time	References
Brain cancer	Drug response; preparation of spheroid tissue mircroarray	Not stated	Non-coated well	49 days	Plummer et al., 2019
Breast cancer	Biological studies into the indentification of invasive cancer cells	10	Matrigel and Collagen I Hydrogels	4 days	Cheung et al., 2013
Breast cancer	Drug response in parallel with the clinic	78	Agar-coated plate	5 days	Halfter et al., 2015
Breast cancer	Drug response; biological studies into tumor mutations	27	Matrigel	30 days	Orditura et al., 2018
Esophageal and Oropharyngeal cancer	Biological studies	21	Matrigel	21 days	Kijima et al., 2019
Gastrointestinal cancer	High-throughput drug screening	32	Matrigel	7 days	Kondo et al., 2018
Gastrointestinal cancer	Drug response; mass spectrometry	4	Basement membrane extract	10 days	Liu et al., 2018
Gastrointestinal cancer	Biological studies into tumor mutations	11	Matrigel	10 days	Matano et al., 2015
Gastrointestinal cancer	Biological studies into tumor mutations	26	Matrigel	11 days	Mousavi et al., 2019
Gastrointestinal cancer	Biological studies	20	Matrigel	90 days	Sato et al., 2011
Gastrointestinal cancer	Biological studies	Not stated	Matrigel	As per Sato et al. (2011)	Schnalzger et al., 2019
Gastrointestinal cancer	Biobank establishment; high-throughput drug screening; biological studies into tumor mutations	20	Basement membrane extract	6 days	van de Wetering et al., 2015
Gastrointestinal cancer	Drug response in parallel with the clinic; biological studies	71	Agarose-coated plate and Matrigel	12 days	Vlachogiannis et al., 2018
Gastrointestinal cancer	Biological studies into tumor mutations	14	Matrigel	90 days	Weeber et al., 2015
Head and neck cancer	Drug and radiotherapy response	Not stated	ULA and Hanging-Drop	7 days	Hagemann et al., 2017
Head and neck cancer	Drug response; biological studies	10	Matrigel	30 days	Tanaka et al., 2018
Pancreatic cancer	Biological studies	10	Matrigel	6 months	Boj et al., 2015
Prostate cancer	Biological studies	24	Agarose-coated plate	14 days	Bansal et al., 2016
Prostate cancer	Biological studies	24	Matrigel	3–6 months	Bartucci et al., 2015, 2016
Prostate cancer	Biobank establishment; biological studies	3	Matrigel	14 days	Beshiri et al., 2018
Prostate cancer	Biological studies; establishment of new organoid lines	7	Matrigel	60 days	Gao et al., 2014
Prostate cancer	Drug response	109	ULA plates	Several months	Linxweiler et al., 2018
Prostate cancer	High-throughput drug screening; biological studies	34	Matrigel	12 months	Puca et al., 2018