For effective cancer chemotherapy, chemosensitivity testing of anticancer drugs should be performed using fresh surgical specimens obtained from the cancer. We have developed a new in vitro chemosensitivity test named the collagen gel droplet embedded culture drug sensitivity test (CD-DST). The CD-DST method consists of a collagen gel droplet embedded culture step, exposure and washout of anticancer drug, a serum-free culture step, and evaluation of anticancer effect by image analysis. This method has many advantages including a high success rate for primary culture, the need for only a small number of cells for the test, easy quantification of the anticancer effects without contamination with fibroblasts by using an image analysis system, a good correlation between in vitro and in vivo results, and simplicity and speed. The CD-DST method can be performed in the laboratory using a system kit Primaster�.
