Multiphoton and confocal imaging of precisely cut oral cancer tumor sections for personalized medicine

Traditionally, testing of therapeutic agents uses two-dimensional cell cultures which does not recapitulate the complex, three-dimensional architecture of tissues. In the case of cancer drug development, immunotherapy (IT) emerged as an effective treatment strategy for the patients who respond to therapy. However, the overall patient response rate for immunotherapy is around 25%. Therefore, there is a need to develop more effective drug testing platform for cancer patients. In this work, we develop three-dimensional tissue cultures of human oral cancer slices. We observed the growth dynamics of the tissue sections for up to 28 days. Their viability over extended periods suggest that the tissue sections may be used for personalized drug testing.