Sensitivity testing for general anticancer agents involves culturing cancer cells, exposure to an anticancer agent, and assessing the degree of growth inhibition. One such method is the collagen gel droplet-embedded culture drug-sensitivity test (CD-DST). Clinical results confirm a close correlation of a better than 75% accuracy between CD-DST results and responses to anticancer agents administered in the clinical setting. Although there have been few randomized, controlled studies of the CD-DST method, the general observation is that cancer patients survive longer if their disease responds to an anticancer agent than if it is ineffective. Therefore, it can be extrapolated that the high diagnostic accuracy of CD-DST is indirect evidence that this method can be used to select the group for whom chemotherapy will be effective, with a resultant prolongation of their survival time, and the group for whom chemotherapy will be ineffective, with no increased survival time.
Keywords: CD-DST; antitumor drug-screening assay; breast cancer; chemosensitivity test; chemotherapy; drug resistance; gastric cancer; lung cancer; uterine cancer.