Tumors can be more complex than imagined earlier: Study

[gdpawel]

How do you aggregate a sufficient number of cancer cells to make accurate determinations? Detectable tumor cells in the peripheral blood are present only in extremely small numbers. This precludes allowing a sufficient number of cells to incubate for a few days in the presence of chemotherapeutic agents. Analysis of a relatively small number of isolated cancer cells cannot yield the same quality information as subjecting living cells to chemotherapeutic agents, begging the question of whether or not it can accurately predict which drugs will work and which will not.