Improving Techniques for Clonogenic Assay

Abstract

A number of technical problems prevent the widespread use of in vitro clonal assays for human tumor cells on a routine clinical basis (Selby et al. 1983). One area where improvements can be expected is in the culture conditions, since a major limitation of these assays is the low plating efficiencies (PEs) which are usually obtained. This, of course, means that anticancer drugs can be individually tested only on a minority of tumor samples. Furthermore, tumor colony growth in most assay cultures is dependent on the presence of animal sera, which contain variable amounts of various nutrients, hormones, and growth factors. Standardization of culture conditions between laboratories or even between serum batches is, therefore, impossible.