Cancer of the pancreas is one of the most aggressive and insidious types of cancer. The disease does not cause any symptoms for a long time, and by the time it is diagnosed, the tumor has often already spread into the surrounding area. There is only a short window of time, if any, for treatment. Just six percent of patients are still alive five years after diagnosis.
This makes it all the more important to find out as quickly as possible which chemotherapy drug responds best. Because the tumors are as diverse and individual as the patients.
But trying out one active ingredient after the other would take too long. Researchers at the University of Bochum are testing a different solution. They grow so-called organoids in order to be able to test various chemotherapy drugs in the laboratory, as Britta Majchrzak-Stiller, who is involved in the work, explains. “We have already made a treatment recommendation for three patients,” says Majchrzak-Stiller in an interview with WELT. The project has been running since January 2025.
Organoids are tiny, three-dimensional tissue structures that grow in a nutrient solution. The Bochum researchers obtain them from patients' tumor cells. The structures have a spherical shape and can be a maximum of 200 micrometers (that's 0.2 millimeters) in size. Otherwise, they would begin to die inside because they are not supplied with nutrients via blood vessels.
In classic cell cultures, cancer cells usually grow flat on plastic surfaces. However, such two-dimensional models only inadequately correspond to the conditions in the human body. The organoids, on the other hand, are essentially small tumors and represent the properties of the malignant tumor in the organism much more realistically. This is its special advantage.
Every year around 250 patients with pancreatic cancer are operated on at the Bochum University Hospital; This makes it one of the largest pancreas centers in Germany. So far, the conditions for growing organoids have been met in around 60 cases. For example, patients must not have received any chemotherapy before the operation.
During the operation, the tumor tissue that was removed from the pancreas is brought to the pathology department in an ice box, where it is cut open and processed. Finally, in the laboratory, the material is chopped up and placed in a Matrigel, a gel-like protein mixture. According to the researchers, the entire procedure takes no more than two hours. However, not all cancer cells can actually be made to grow in this way.
If it works, the cells remain in the nutrient solution for three to four weeks and grow into organoids, although some require up to six weeks. “The speed of growth depends on the tumor in question,” explains Majchrzak-Stiller.
The organoids are then broken down into individual cells, washed and frozen. Each of these frozen cells can later grow into an organoid. The researchers have already frozen 15 cell lines, and five more are currently being cultivated in the laboratory. A biobank is gradually being created.
This biobank reflects the diversity of tumors and is available for further research. Pharmaceutical companies could use them to test new chemotherapy drugs, which could make certain animal tests unnecessary.
The primary goal, however, is to test the effectiveness of various chemotherapy drugs in the laboratory and to quickly find out which active ingredients a tumor responds to and which it does not. This is intended to prevent a wrong decision that can deprive a pancreas patient of any chance of survival.
Philipp Höhn is also part of the Bochum research team. “If I have a two-dimensional cell culture and put an active ingredient on it, for example, it gets everywhere,” he is quoted as saying in a statement from the university. “But that doesn’t reflect reality.”
In fact, an active ingredient in the human body has to penetrate different layers of the tumor tissue and usually does not reach everywhere equally well. The three-dimensional organoids are much better, says Höhn.
The organoids thus close a gap between simple laboratory experiments and clinical studies on humans. They are intended to help tailor therapies more individually to patients and thus contribute to personalized cancer medicine. Researchers at Ulm University have developed this research approach and presented it in the journal “Journal of Clinical Oncology”. Pancreas centers in Berlin and Munich are also involved in the project.
