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Updated: Jul 3, 2025

Multiparametric Tumor Organoid Drug Screening Using Widefield Live-Cell Imaging for Bulk and Single-Organoid Analysis
Published on: December 23, 2022
Organoid forming potential as complementary parameter for accurate evaluation of breast cancer neoadjuvant
Hai-Shan Ye1, Dan Zhou2, Hong Li3
1School of Medicine, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China.
Background:
13-15% of breast cancer/BC patients diagnosed as pathological complete response/pCR after neoadjuvant systemic therapy/NST suffer from recurrence. This study aims to estimate the rationality of organoid forming potential/OFP for more accurate evaluation of NST efficacy.
Methods:
OFPs of post-NST residual disease/RD were checked and compared with clinical approaches to estimate the recurrence risk. The phenotypes of organoids were classified via HE staining and ER, PR, HER2, Ki67 and CD133 immuno-labeling. The active growing organoids were subjected to drug sensitivity tests.
Results:
Of 62 post-NST BC specimens, 24 were classified as OFP-I with long-term active organoid growth, 19 as OFP-II with stable organoid growth within 3 weeks, and 19 as OFP-III without organoid formation. Residual tumors were overall correlated with OFP grades (P < 0.001), while 3 of the 18 patients (16.67%) pathologically diagnosed as tumor-free (ypT0N0M0) showed tumor derived-organoid formation. The disease-free survival/DFS of OFP-I cases was worse than other two groups (Log-rank P < 0.05). Organoids of OFP-I/-II groups well maintained the biological features of their parental tumors and were resistant to the drugs used in NST.
Conclusions:
The OFP would be a complementary parameter to improve the evaluation accuracy of NST efficacy of breast cancers.

