Continuous imaging to evaluate growth and drug responses of patient-derived colorectal tumouroids

The use of patient-derived tumouroids is expected to have major implications in preclinical drug testing and clinical decision support. Data acquisition from these samples in drug screens, however, is often limited by time-consuming procedures, scarce screening material, and destructive, single-parameter endpoint measurements.

We seek to increase data collected from patient-derived tumouroids and here present a method for non-destructive, continuous image-based analysis of colorectal tumouroid growth and shape under chemotherapeutic perturbations, conducted within a clinically relevant timeframe.

We assessed several readouts automatically derived from continuous imaging data and concluded that tumouroid growth, and the effect of growth inhibiting drugs, can be robustly monitored by measuring the total tumouroid-covered area in images. We also found that measures of average tumouroid size, diameter, and perimeter provide complementary insights.

Our tumouroid analysis method offers a strategy to maximise data extraction from non-destructive imaging techniques while preserving tumouroids for future research, all within a clinically relevant timeframe.