The ChemoFx® assay: An ex vivo chemosensitivity and resistance assay for predicting patient response to cancer chemotherapy

Abstract

The ChemoFx® Assay is an ex vivo assay designed to predict the sensitivity and resistance of a given, patient's solid tumor to a variety of chemotherapy agents. A portion of a patient's solid tumor, as small as a core biopsy, is mechanically disaggregated and established in primary culture where malignant epithelial cells migrate out of tumor expiants to form, a monolayer. Cultures are verified as epithelial and exposed to increasing doses of selected chemotherapeutie agents. The number of live cells remaining post-treatment is enumerated microscopically using automated cell-counting software. The resultant cell counts in treated wells are compared with those in untreated control wells to generate a dose-response curve for each chemotherapeutie agent tested on a given patient specimen. Features of each dose-response curve are used to score a tumor's response to each ex vivo treatment as "responsive," "intermediate response," or "non-responsive." Collectively, these scores are used to assist an oncologist in making treatment decisions. © Humana Press Inc.