Video Article An Orthotopic Mouse Model of Anaplastic Thyroid Carcinoma

Several types of animal models of human thyroid carcinomas have been established, including subcutaneous xenograft and orthotopic implantation of cancer cells into immunodeficient mice. Subcutaneous xenograft models have been valuable for preclinical screening and evaluation of new therapeutic treatments. There are a number of advantages to using a subcutaneous model; 1) rapid, 2) reproducible, and 3) tumor establishment, growth, and response to therapeutic agents may be monitored by visual inspection. However, substantial evidence has shed light on the short-comings of subcutaneous xenograft models1-3. For instance, medicinal treatments demonstrating curative properties in subcutaneous xenograft models often have no notable impact on the human disease. The microenvironment of the site of xenographic transplantation or injection lies at the heart of this dissimilarity. Orthotopic tumor xenograft models provide a more biologically relevant context in which to study the disease. The advantages of implanting diseased cells or tissue into their anatomical origin equivalent within a host animal includes a suitable site for tumor-host interactions, development of disease-related metastases and the ability to examine site-specific influence on investigational therapeutic remedies. Therefore, orthotopic xenograft models harbor far more clinical value because they closely reproduce human disease. For these reasons, a number o