Oncogramme, a new promising method for individualized breast tumour response testing for cancer treatment.

Abstract : BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is the most widely spread cancer in the world, attracting much research and individualized tumour response testing (ITRT) methods are now used to individualize patient chemotherapeutic administrations. A new ITRT method was developed with optimized processing. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Breast tumour fragments were separated and the cells seeded in a foetal calf serum-free defined medium. After various chemotherapeutic treatments, cytotoxicity was determined by cell death detection with calcein acetoxymethyl and ethidium homodimer labelling. RESULTS: The culture medium allowed breast tumour cell proliferation in culture, while preventing fibroblastic cell survival. Moreover, the cell death analysis gave rise to a chemoresistance profile called an Oncogramme, with statistically significant values. CONCLUSION: The Oncogramme is a new ITRT method which can predict patient cell sensitivities to chemotherapeutics and should be validated by a new phase I clinical trial.