Journal: NPJ precision oncology
This study describes DRUGSENS, an ex vivo functional drug testing platform designed to guide personalized therapy in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer.
Key points:
- Assay concept and technology
– Uses patient-derived tumor samples and cell lines to test drugs directly on tumor cells.
– Quantifies single-cell, on-target drug effects using immunofluorescence-based confocal imaging.
– Analysis is semi-automated and performed with QuPath, Fiji, and a dedicated R package, making the workflow scalable and potentially adaptable to clinical labs.
- Feasibility and turnaround
– Tested on 21 samples from 17 patients, including chemotherapy-naive and relapsed disease.
– Achieved 100% culture success.
– Delivered interpretable drug sensitivity results within 10 days, compatible with real-world clinical decision timelines.
- Drug response patterns
– Most samples exhibited limited sensitivity to multiple agents, consistent with multidrug resistance in advanced ovarian cancer.
– The platform evaluates both single agents and clinically relevant drug combinations at high resolution.
- Clinical correlation
– Ex vivo drug sensitivity profiles showed significant correlation with progression-free and overall survival, indicating that DRUGSENS readouts have potential prognostic and predictive value.
- Implications
– Provides a functional precision oncology tool for epithelial ovarian cancer that can help prioritize drugs and combinations for individual patients.
– The approach is positioned as a bridge between genomic profiling and actual treatment response, with potential applicability across tumor types.