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. 2021 Oct 29;41(12):1331–1353. doi: 10.1002/cac2.12224

TABLE 2.

The application of cancer organoid models

Tumor organoid model Date Cell derived Sample size Research type Achievement Ref
Colorectal cancer 2020.01 Patient 11 Drug resistance Clusterin, a drug resistance marker used to detect colorectal cancer progression [49]
Colorectal cancer 2020.11 Patient 15 Tumor metabolic properties and phenotypes Established a basis for the development of new treatments which target metabolic parameters in colorectal cancer [50]
Colorectal cancer 2020.09 Patient 2 Tumor metastasis Development of an experimental model for investigating colorectal cancer progression [51]
Colorectal cancer 2019.09 Patient 40 Tumor metastasis Developed an evaluation method to assess existing hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy regimens on an individual patient level [52]
Colorectal cancer 2020.07 Patient 28 Personalized therapy Displayed the use of organoids in guiding precision treatment for patients with CRC and peritoneal metastases [53]
Colorectal cancer 2020.08 Patient 22 Drug screening and gene profiling The use of ex vivo drug screening to identify novel treatment options for metastatic colorectal cancer [54]
Colorectal cancer 2020.08 Patient 50 Tumor gene profile Distinguished genetic profiles of rectal and colon tumors using organoids [55]
Colorectal cancer 2020.06 Patient and cells 22 Tumor biomarker DACH1 as a potential prognostic marker and therapeutic target for colorectal cancer [56]
Colorectal cancer 2016.11 Patient NA Drug screening Demonstrating the potential of colorectal cancer organoid libraries in drug screening [58]
Colorectal cancer 2019.11 Patient 5 Neoantigen presentation Identified novel approaches to increase neoantigen presentation [59]
Colorectal cancer 2019.06 Patient NA CAR‐mediated cytotoxicity Colorectal cancer organoids successfully evaluate CAR efficacy and tumor specificity in a personalized manner [62]
Colorectal cancer 2019.09 Patient 90 Chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy sensitivity Predict treatment sensitivity for patients with cancer undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy [64]
Lung cancer 2019.09 Patient 80 Biobank of lung cancer organoids construction Successfully construct biobank of lung cancer organoids [67]
Lung cancer 2020.03 Patient 30 Tumor modeling Successfully construct NSCLC organoid for drug testing [31]
Lung cancer 2020.08 Patient 12 Drug screening To identify new therapeutic targets and advanced personalized medicine [66]
Lung cancer 2020.08 Patient 12 Genomic characteristics and drug screening PDOs are highly credible models for personalized precision medicine [71]
Lung cancer 2020.03 Patient 4 Drug screening PDOs were relatively more sensitive to CF10 [72]
Lung cancer 2020.03 Patient 10 Drug screening To identify the anticancer activity of chelerythrine chloride, cantharidin, and harmine in PDOs [73]
Lung cancer 2019.04 Pleural effusion aspirate from patient 2 Drug response Serve as more accurate disease models for the study of tumor progression and drug development [74]
Lung cancer 2019.05 PDOs 3 Evaluating molecular targeted drugs PDOs are suitable for evaluation molecular targeted drugs [75]
Lung cancer 2019.06 Patient 11 Immunotherapy Combining PD‐L1 with MEK‐I in 3D‐culture model, useful to predict sensitivity of patients to immunotherapy [76]
Pancreatic cancer 2019.12 Patient 30 Personalized drug screening Development of a platform for identification of novel therapeutics for pancreatic cancer using PDOs [79]
Pancreatic cancer 2020.08 Patient 10 Personalized therapy Generation of PDOs from a limited sample can allow molecular profiling and drug testing [80]
Pancreatic cancer 2020.09 Patient 76 Precision medicine To guide postoperative adjuvant chemotherapeutic selection [82]
Pancreatic cancer 2019.09 PDOX models NA Drug sensitivity and resistance Development of PDOX‐derived organoid system for use in prediction of treatment response in advanced pancreatic cancer [81]
Pancreatic cancer 2019.01 Patient NA Immunotherapy Exploring the role of PD‐L1 in pancreatic cancer organoids [83]
Pancreatic cancer 2019.11 Patient NA Tumor resistance Pan‐ERBB kinase inhibitor resulted in suppression of cell viability and tumor regressions when combined with MEK inhibition [84]
Pancreatic cancer 2020.06 Patient 6 Investigate the metabolism in PDOs A therapeutic intervention could delay PDA recurrence and prolong the survival of affected patients [87]
Pancreatic cancer 2020.07 Patient 25 Study the pattern of invasion in PDA Invasion programs in SMAD4‐mutant and SMAD4 wild‐type tumors are different in both morphology and molecular mechanism [88]
Pancreatic cancer 2020.12 Patient 8 Study human PDA induced cachexia To further understand the mechanisms driving cancer cachexia [89]
Breast cancer 2020.05 Patient 12 Using CRISPR/Cas9 to model tumor organoids Modeling breast cancer using CRISPR/Cas9‐mediated engineering of human breast cancer organoids [93]
Breast cancer 2019.08 Primary patient‐derived breast cancer cells NA Personalized chemotherapy Development of a new platform for culturing primary cells for developing personalized chemotherapy regimens [94]
Breast cancer 2019.06 Genetically engineered mouse model NA Cellular metabolic heterogeneity Found that metabolic heterogeneity after upon treatment is attributed to heterogeneous metabolic shifts within tumor cells [95]
Breast cancer 2019.05 Patient 26 Metastasis cancer related translational research Demonstrated metastatic breast cancer organoids closely resemble the transcriptome of their parent lesion [96]
Breast cancer 2020.03 Patient 1 Drug screening Identified possible treatments in patients with breast papillary carcinoma [97]
Liver cancer 2019.03 Primary mouse liver tumors 129 Drug development and personalized medicine The antitumor drug can be successfully used in the organoids from primary mouse liver tumors [100]
Liver cancer 2019.08 Reprogrammed human hepatocytes NA Modeling liver cancer Showed human‐induced hepatocyte organoids can be genetically manipulated to model cancer initiation [101]
Liver cancer 2019.06 Patient NA CRISPR/Cas9 engineer human liver organoids Demonstrate combination of organoid technology with CRISPR/Cas9 can serve as an experimental platform for mechanistic studies of human cancer gene function [102]
Liver cancer 2020.01 Patient 4 Tumor resistance Combination of sorafenib and Hedgehog signaling inhibitors might be effective in HCC patients with high CD44 levels as a personalized‐medicine approach [104]
Liver cancer 2019.01 Patient 5 Drug response heterogeneity This study lay the foundation for functional personalized oncology approaches [105]
Liver cancer 2019.05 Primary mouse liver tumors NA Tumor growth Mycophenolic acid inhibits liver tumor organoids initiation and growth [106]
Ovarian cancer 2020.07 Patient 7 Drug sensitivity and resistance testing PDOs are suitable cancer models that can be used to screen effective personalized ovarian cancer drugs [110]
Ovarian cancer 2020.06 Patient 23 Tumor heterogeneity Increase our knowledge of genetic and drug response heterogeneity [111]
Ovarian cancer 2019.05 Patient 32 Genetic manipulations and drug screening Ovarian cancer organoids illustrating intra‐ and inter‐patient heterogeneity to use for drug‐screening assays [112]
Bladder cancer 2019.3 Patient 53 Construct a bladder organoids biobank Bladder organoids biobank for drug testing in the future [115]
Bladder cancer 2020.10 Patient 77 Predict cancer patient drug responses Used pharmacogenomic data derived from organoids and developed a novel machine learning framework to identify biomarkers and predict drug response in bladder cancer [117]
Prostate cancer 2014.09 Patient 32 Predict cancer patient drug responses

Enable the generation of a

large repertoire of patient‐derived prostate cancer

lines amenable to genetic and pharmacologic

studies

[119]
Prostate cancer 2021.08 Patient 81 Explores determinants of outcome

Ensure the reliable

establishment of organoids derived from specific prostate cancer

molecular subtypes

[122]
HNSCC 2018.12 Patient 43 Predict drug sensitivity Show organoids can predict drug sensitivity and potential of organoids in the development of precision treatments for HNSCC [124]
HNSCC 2019.11 Patient 7 For PDT Demonstrated HNSCC organoid as a useful model for in‐vitro testing of targeted PDT [125]
Gastric cancer 2019.02 Patient 20 Modeling gastric cancer Modeled human gastric cancer using organoids [127]
Gastric cancer 2019.01 Patient 7 Personalized treatment To predict individual therapy response and patient outcome [128]
Glioblastoma organoids 2020.01 Patient 53 Personalized treatment Establishment of a glioblastoma organoid biobank for testing personalized therapies [130]

DACH1, Dachshund homolog 1; NA, Not available; CAR, Chimeric antigen receptor; PDOs, Patient‐derived organoids; CF10, fluoropyrimidine polymer F10; PD‐L1, Programmed cell death ligand 1; MEK‐I, MAP‐ERK kinase inhibitor; PDOX, Patient‐derived orthotropic xenograft; ERBB, Receptor tyrosine‐protein kinase; PDA, Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma; SMAD4, Mothers against decapentaplegic homolog 4; HCC, Hepatocellular carcinoma; HNSCC, Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma; PDT, Photodynamic therapy.