Rapid anticancer drug screening using patient-derived lung cancer organoids: a case report

A variety of anticancer drugs and targeted agents for lung cancer have been developed, but some patients do not respond to these medications as intended. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop a tool for predicting the anticancer drug response of each patient. Patient-derived tumor organoids (PDOs) have emerged as reliable in vitro tools for developing precision medicine. Herein, we describe a case of a 50-year-old nonsmoking man who was diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer. Initially, no clinical symptoms were found in this patient. Postoperative pathology confirmed a stage Ib tumor, and an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation (exon21p.L858R) was detected in the patient’s lung tumor specimen. The patient later showed intracranial relapse 17 months after complete resection. An organoid culture was established from the resected brain metastatic tissue and a drug sensitivity test showed, within 72 hours, that the organoids were resistant to gefitinib and osimertinib. Our results recapitulated the patient’s response to anticancer drugs, demonstrating the potential of PDOs for precision medicine.