The quest to give patients a heads-up on whether specific cancer treatments will be beneficial or hurtful to them seems to be leading the race to find a potential cancer cure. The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London has successfully created what it calls "mini-tumors" or organoids that can help combat the life-threatening disease.
Cancer is deemed the leading cause of death worldwide, according to the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) and World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF). However, according to the American Cancer Society's journal "CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians," the death rate for cancer-related cases in the United States has declined steadily over the past 20 years.
According to a report by Cancer.org, the decline in mortality is a combined result of a decline in smoking as well as early prevention and treatment. In line with this, the study made by London's ICR is considered "groundbreaking," because by growing mini-tumors in the laboratory, they have been able to predict how patients will respond to treatment.
They were able to do so by studying the biopsies of 71 patients with colorectal cancer and said biopsies were then grown into three-dimensional cancerous organs. The resultant organoids were then given the same treatment as the patients were, and the study produced interesting results. If the drug for the organoid worked, it also had an 88 percent success rate with the patients. Inversely, if the drugs did not work on the organoid, it also had a 100 percent failure rate with the patient.
By applying this in the selection of possible treatments for cancer patients, treatment can now take on a more humane and less-brutal approach. It would also spare the patient from waiting for long periods before results would come in. According to Dr. Nicola Valeri from the ICR, "This has been a huge issue in the past, when people were using mouse models it was taking six to eight months to get to the results. With this tool we can get results in a couple of months and I think we can get even faster."
While the study focused on bowel and stomach cancer, Valeri is optimistic that the technique may also be applied to other cancer types, in time.
