Cancer heterogeneity is regarded as the main reason for the failure of conventional cancer therapy. The ability to reconstruct intra- and interpatient heterogeneity in cancer models is crucial for understanding cancer biology as well as for developing personalized anti-cancer therapy. Cancer organoids represent an emerging approach for creating patient-derived in vitro cancer models that closely recapitulate the pathophysiological features of natural tumorigenesis and metastasis. Meanwhile, cancer organoids have recently been utilized in the discovery of personalized anti-cancer therapy and prognostic biomarkers. Further, the synergistic combination of cancer organoids with organ-on-a-chip and 3D bioprinting presents a new avenue in the development of more sophisticated and optimized model systems to recapitulate complex cancer-stroma or multiorgan metastasis. Here, we summarize the recent advances in cancer organoids from a perspective of the in vitro emulation of natural cancer evolution and the applications in personalized cancer theranostics. We also discuss the challenges and trends in reconstructing more comprehensive cancer models for basic and clinical cancer research.

中文翻译：

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新兴的类器官模型：癌症研究中的飞跃。

癌症异质性被认为是常规癌症治疗失败的主要原因。在癌症模型中重建患者内和患者间异质性的能力对于理解癌症生物学以及开发个性化的抗癌治疗至关重要。癌症类器官代表了一种新兴的方法，可用于创建患者衍生的体外癌症模型，该模型密切概括自然肿瘤发生和转移的病理生理特征。同时，癌症类器官最近已用于发现个性化抗癌疗法和预后生物标志物。进一步，癌症类器官与单片器官和3D生物打印的协同结合为开发更复杂和优化的模型系统以概括复杂的癌基质或多器官转移提供了一条新途径。在这里，我们从体外模拟自然癌症演变及其在个性化癌症治疗中的应用的角度总结了癌症类器官的最新进展。我们还将讨论在为基础和临床癌症研究重建更全面的癌症模型中的挑战和趋势。