Breast Cancer Tissue Explants: An Approach to Develop Personalized Therapy in Public Health Services

• Published in: Journal of personalized medicine Vol. 13; no. 10; p. 1521
• Main Authors: Carranza-Rosales, Pilar, Valencia-Mercado, Daniel, Esquivel-Hernández, Olga, González-Geroniz, Manuel Ismael, Bañuelos-García, José Inocente, Castruita-Ávila, Ana Lilia, Sánchez-Prieto, Mario Alberto, Viveros-Valdez, Ezequiel, Morán-Martínez, Javier, Balderas-Rentería, Isaías, Guzmán-Delgado, Nancy Elena, Carranza-Torres, Irma Edith
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.10.2023; MDPI
• Subjects: 5-Fluorouracil; Analysis; Biomarkers; Breast cancer; Cancer; Cancer therapies; Carcinoma; Cell culture; Chemotherapy; Culture media; Customer service; Cyclophosphamide; Development and progression; Drug resistance; Drugs; Epidermal growth factor; Epirubicin; Estrogen receptors; ex vivo; Explants; Health aspects; Health care industry; Mortality; Paclitaxel; Patients; Precision medicine; Progesterone; Public health; R&D; Research & development; Service development; tissue slices; Toxicity; treatment response; Tumors; Viability; Mexico; United States > US
• ISSN: 2075-4426; 2075-4426
• DOI: 10.3390/jpm13101521

Breast cancer is one of the main causes of death worldwide. Lately, there is great interest in developing methods that assess individual sensitivity and/or resistance of tumors to antineoplastics to provide personalized therapy for patients. In this study we used organotypic culture of human breast tumor slices to predict the experimental effect of antineoplastics on the viability of tumoral tissue. Samples of breast tumor were taken from 27 patients with clinically advanced breast cancer; slices were obtained and incubated separately for 48 h with paclitaxel, docetaxel, epirubicin, 5-fluorouracil, cyclophosphamide, and cell culture media (control). We determined an experimental tumor sensitivity/resistance (S/R) profile by evaluating tissue viability using the Alamar Blue® metabolic test, and by structural viability (histopathological analyses, necrosis, and inflammation). These parameters were related to immunohistochemical expression of the estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2. The predominant histological type found was infiltrating ductal carcinoma (85.2%), followed by lobular carcinoma (7.4%) and mixed carcinoma (7.4%). Experimental drug resistance was related to positive hormone receptor status in 83% of samples treated with cyclophosphamide (p = 0.027). Results suggest that the tumor S/R profile can help to predict personalized therapy or optimize chemotherapeutic treatments in breast cancer.