The growth and cellular kinetics of human cervical cancer spheroids in relation to drug response.

A methodology for culturing multicellular spheroids directly from tumour biopsy material has been established with a success rate of 82% for cervical carcinomas. Spheroids, selected for uniform size and shape, have been subjected to quantitative assay to determine their population dynamics using 3H-Tdr autoradiography and have also been treated with 13 commonly used anti-cancer drugs. Several characteristics of cervical spheroids, e.g. growth rate, labelling index, thickness of viable cell rim, were similar for drug responding and non-responding spheroids but the faster growing spheroids responded to an increased number of types of drugs. Spheroids derived from poorly differentiated tumours also showed an increased response to drugs compared to those from moderate or well differentiated tumours.