Establishment of patient-derived tumor spheroids for non-small cell lung cancer

<div><p>The prognosis of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients is poor. One of the reasons for this hampered progress has been a lack of <i>in vitro</i> models that would faithfully recapitulate the heterogeneity of tumors and response to treatment. In this study, surgically resected tumors were obtained from patients with stage I/II NSCLC during curative-intent surgery. Using a 3D patient-derived tumor spheroids culture system, our results demonstrate successful long-term expansion of primary NSCLC cells in vitro (> 120 days). Patient-derived tumor spheroid (PDS) cultures could be established with a success rate of 100% (3 out of 3 samples). Consistent with their growth in culture and their cancer type, many cells within the tumor spheroids were stained positive for Ki67 and thyroid transcription factor-1. The result of this study supports the establishment of an expandable 3D <i>in vitro</i> NSCLC model for drug screening, and enables the potential long term studies such as the establishment of drug resistant models.</p>