Jul. 9 at 6:34 AM
$AGEN
**Tumor heterogeneity is preserved, not lost.** Cancer isn't one uniform mass — it's made of genetically distinct sub-populations (clones). The fact that 85% of dominant clones survived the process of growing organoids means researchers can study a tumor's real internal diversity, including drug-resistant subpopulations that might cause relapse, rather than an oversimplified version.
**The biggest clinical implication: current drug-eligibility rules may be too narrow.** The most striking finding is that 58% of organoids from patients who were *ruled out* for FDA-approved PARP inhibitors (based on standard biomarker/genetic criteria) still responded to those drugs in functional testing. This suggests that genomic testing alone — the current standard for deciding who qualifies for these drugs — is likely excluding patients who would actually benefit. Functional testing (literally testing the drug on living tumor tissue) could catch responders that genetic screening misses.
