Selection of chemotherapy for patient treatment utilizing a radiometric versus a cloning system

From the 1950s to the 1970s, a number of in vitro systems that measured inhibition of glucose metabolism were used to predict the responsiveness of patients' tumors to chemotherapy. In vitro-in vivo correlations were excellent, with true positive predictions ranging from 68% to 96% and true negative predictions of 95% to 100%. The radiometric system is a new in vitro technique that measures the conversion of 14C-glucose to 14CO2. The system already has been utilized to screen prospective new antineoplastic agents for cytotoxicity. The present study was undertaken to determine if the radiometric system might be used to predict correctly the responsiveness of an individual patient's tumor to single-agent or combination-agent chemotherapy. Fifty-six tumor specimens were divided and tested for drug sensitivity in the radiometric system and a conventional human tumor clonning system. Overall, there was a significant correlation between in vitro and in vivo results for the conventional cloning system (P = 0.03). However, there was no significant relationship between in vitro and in vivo results for the radiometric system. The radiometric system consistently failed to predict the tumor's clinical sensitivity to single agents. A radiometric system is not useful in predicting the responsiveness of a patient's tumor to single agent chemotherapy and is not a replacement for the more biologically attractive human tumor cloning system.