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

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 in vitro 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 in vitro NSCLC model for drug screening, and enables the potential long term studies such as the establishment of drug resistant models.