Stromal cell

Ovarian cancer

Clinical trial

Tumor microenvironment

Cancer

Stroma

Biotechnology

Biology

Internal medicine

Pathology

In vivo

Oncology

Genetics

Medicine

Immunohistochemistry

Organoid

Pancreatic cancer

Cancer research

Journal of Hematology & Oncology

Patient-derived tumor xenografts (PDXs), in which tumor fragments surgically dissected from cancer patients are directly transplanted into immunodeficient mice, have emerged as a useful model for translational research aimed at facilitating precision medicine. PDX susceptibility to anti-cancer drugs is closely correlated with clinical data in patients, from whom PDX models have been derived. Accumulating evidence suggests that PDX models are highly effective in predicting the efficacy of both conventional and novel anti-cancer therapeutics. This also allows “co-clinical trials,” in which pre-clinical investigations in vivo and clinical trials could be performed in parallel or sequentially to assess drug efficacy in patients and PDXs. However, tumor heterogeneity present in PDX models and in the original tumor samples constitutes an obstacle for application of PDX models. Moreover, human stromal cells originally present in tumors dissected from patients are gradually replaced by host stromal cells as the xenog...

Applications of patient-derived tumor xenograft models and tumor organoids