Table 3.

The in vitro response of treatments on the patient-derived tumor slice culture system

Type of cancer	Treatment*	No. of patients	In vitro response	Reference
Prostate cancer and bladder cancer	Docetaxel or gemcitabine	10	Induction of cell death and increase in cell loss	24
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma	Rapamycin	12	Decrease in metabolic activity	25
Colon cancer and breast cancer	Chemotherapy, endocrinotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and polytherapy†	7‡	Decrease in cell viability and increase in apoptosis, with a heterogenous individual response to chemotherapy or immunotherapy.	27
Colorectal cancer liver metastasis	IL-10 antibody plus CAR-T cell therapy	38	αIL-10 augments CAR-T cell activation and CAR-T cell-mediated cytotoxicity	32
Hepatic metastatic colorectal carcinoma	Oxaliplatin, cetuximab, or pembrolizumab	9	Decrease in cell proliferation, with a heterogenous individual response to chemotherapy and targeted therapy	41
Breast cancer	Cyclophosphamide, adriamycin plus 5-FU	15	Decrease in cell proliferation and induction of cell death	47
Glioblastoma	Temozolomide	12	Decrease in cell proliferation and increase in cell loss and apoptosis, with a heterogenous individual response to chemotherapy	48
Gastric and esophagogastric junction cancer	5-FU or cisplatin	13	Increase in cell loss and apoptosis	49
Hepatocellular carcinoma	Sorafenib plus N20 blocking peptide	13	Decrease in cell proliferation	66
Colorectal carcinoma	5-FU	7	A dose-dependent decrease in cell proliferation, with a heterogenous individual response to chemotherapy	67
Bladder cancer	Mitomycin-C plus coxsackie A21	1	Stronger apoptosis in the combination therapy than either of the monotherapy	68
HNSCC	Cetuximab	10	Decrease in cell proliferation, with a heterogenous individual response to targeted therapy	69
HNSCC	Cetuximab	14	Decrease in cell proliferation, with a heterogenous individual response to targeted therapy	70
Glioblastoma	Gefitinib	1	Insensitive anticancer activity	71
Melanoma	Ribociclib plus CGM097	13	The impedance of cell growth	72
Prostate cancer	Enzalutamide, or olaparib	3	Decrease in cell proliferation and increase in cell loss, with a heterogenous individual response to anti-androgen or targeted therapy	73
Breast cancer	Rapamycin	30	Decrease in cell proliferation, with a heterogenous individual response to targeted therapy	75
Rectal cancer liver metastasis	Oxaliplatin	20	Decrease in tumor size and cell viability, and increase in apoptosis	78
Breast cancer	Doxorubicin	1	A dose-dependent decrease in cell viability	79
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma	Staurosporine, gemcitabine or cisplatin	10	Decrease in cell proliferation and increase in cell loss and apoptosis	80
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma	Staurosporine or cycloheximide	13	A dose- and time-dependent increase in apoptosis and decrease in cell proliferation	81, 82
Lung cancer	Cisplatin	32	Induction of cell death	83
Melanoma, NSCLC, RCC, breast cancer, and ovarian cancer	Nivolumab	37‡	Increase in immune activity, with a heterogenous individual response to immunotherapy	85
Oral squamous cell carcinoma	4 Gy irradiation	28	More cancer stem cells and DNA damage response in responders than nonresponders	87

*The “or”-connected drugs represent monotherapy, while the “plus”-connected drugs represent combination therapy.

‡These 7 patients consist of 2 breast cancer patients and 5 colon cancer patients, and these 37 patients consist of 13 melanoma patients, 7 NSLCC patients, 8 breast cancer patients, 6 ovarian patients, and 3 RCC patients.

†The drugs involved in these treatments include 5-fluorouracil, cisplatin, docetaxel, doxorubicin, epirubicin, mitoxantrone, irinotecan, daunorubicin, tamoxifen, neratinib, ceritinib, afatinib, regorafenib, osimertinib, palbociclib, pembrolizumab, durvalumab, and durvalumab plus IL-2.

Abbreviations: 5-FU, 5-fluorouracil; HNSCC, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma; RCC, renal cell carcinoma.