Abstract
Background: Systemic therapy is the primary treatment for advanced thymic malignancies. However, there is an urgent need to improve clinical outcome. Personalized treatment based on predictive biomarkers is a potential approach to address this requirement. In this study, we aimed to show the correlation between drug sensitivity tests on CTCs-derived organoids and clinical response in patients with thymic malignancies. This approach carries the potential to create personalized cancer avatars and improve treatment outcome for patients. Methods: We previously reported potential treatment outcome prediction with patient-derived organoids (cancer avatars) in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. To further investigate the feasibility of this approach in advanced thymic malignancies, we conducted a study in which 12 patients were enrolled and 21 liquid biopsies were performed. Results: Cancer avatars were successfully derived in 16 out of 21 samples (success rate 76.2%). We found a sensitivity of 1.0 and specificity of 0.6 for drug sensitivity tests on the cancer avatars, and a two-tailed Fisher's exact test revealed a significant correlation between drug sensitivity tests and clinical responses (p = 0.0275). Conclusion: This study supports the potential of circulating tumor cell-derived organoids to inform personalized treatment for advanced thymic malignancies. Further validation of this proof of concept finding is ongoing.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2591-2600 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Thoracic Cancer |
Volume | 14 |
Issue number | 25 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 09 2023 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
© 2023 The Authors. Thoracic Cancer published by China Lung Oncology Group and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.Keywords
- circulating tumor cell
- organoid
- thymic carcinoma
- thymic malignancy
- thymoma
- Pilot Projects
- Thymus Neoplasms/pathology
- Humans
- Pancreatic Neoplasms/pathology
- Neoplastic Cells, Circulating/pathology
- Organoids/pathology