Chemopredictive assay for patients with primary brain tumors.

2089 Background: Cancer stem-like cells (CSLCs) in primary brain tumors can resist certain chemotherapies, thereby causing relapse of the disease. Thus, development of a test that identifies the most effective chemotherapy management offers great promise for personalized anticancer treatments. Methods: We have developed an ex vivo ChemoID assay designed to predict the sensitivity and resistance of CSLCs and bulk of tumor cells of a given patient's solid tumor to a variety of chemotherapy agents by measuring the percentage of cell death. In a retrospective study of five patients with malignancies of the central nervous system, we assessed the correlation between the results of the ChemoID assay and clinical response. Two anaplastic WHO grade-III ependymomas, two IDH-1 negative WHO grade 4 glioblastomas, and one medulloblastoma were tested. Tumors were classified as responsive (50-100% cell kill), intermediately responsive (30-50% cell kill), and nonresponsive (0-30% cell kill) to chemotherapy. Treatment se...