From cell spheroids to vascularized cancer organoids: Microfluidic tumor-on-a-chip models for preclinical drug evaluations

Chemotherapy is one of the most effective cancer treatments. Starting from the discovery of new molecular entities, it usually takes about 10 years and 2 billion U.S. dollars to bring an effective anti-cancer drug from the benchtop to patients. Due to the physiological differences between animal models and humans, more than 90% of drug candidates failed in phase I clinical trials. Thus, a more efficient drug screening system to identify feasible compounds and pre-exclude less promising drug candidates is strongly desired. For their capability to accurately construct in vitro tumor models derived from human cells to reproduce pathological and physiological processes, microfluidic tumor chips are reliable platforms for preclinical drug screening, personalized medicine, and fundamental oncology research. This review summarizes the recent progress of the microfluidic tumor chip and highlights tumor vascularization strategies. In addition, promising imaging modalities for enhancing data acquisition and machine learning-based image analysis methods to accurately quantify the dynamics of tumor spheroids are introduced. It is believed that the microfluidic tumor chip will serve as a high-throughput, biomimetic, and multi-sensor integrated system for efficient preclinical drug evaluation in the future.

Automated summary

Chemotherapy is an effective cancer treatment, but the process of bringing new drugs from the lab to patients is time-consuming and costly. Microfluidic tumor chips, with their ability to construct in vitro tumor models and utilize machine learning for accurate data acquisition and analysis, offer a promising platform for efficient drug screening and evaluation.