Feasibility of Guided Therapy For Children with Relapsed Brain Tumors Based on Organotypic Slice Culture (OSC) Drug Screening

When children with brain tumors suffer a relapse, there are limited options and these children often receive chemotherapy without any method of predicting its effectiveness. In general, chances of a response to chemotherapy at relapse remain less than 30%, meaning it is more likely that these kids will experience the toxic effects of treatment without any benefit. As there are numerous biological and genomic factors that might determine the effectiveness of any given treatment, there is an urgent need to develop rapid, predictive methods to help determine the most optimal therapy for each child. Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center are engaged in a groundbreaking study to determine if, by preserving a brain tumor biopsy in its microenvironment and conducting immediate drug testing on those samples, it can both determine and administer the most beneficial therapy to the patient.