An Immunocompetent, Orthotopic Mouse Model of Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Utilizing Tissue Engineered Tumor Cell Sheets

Despite the development of a myriad of anticancer drugs that appeared promising in preclinical ovarian cancer animal models, they failed to predict efficacy in clinical testing. To improve the accuracy of preclinical testing of efficacy and toxicity, including pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic evaluations, a novel animal model was developed and characterized. In this study, murine ID8 (epithelial ovarian cancer [EOC]) cells as injected cell suspensions (ICS) and as intact cultured monolayer cell sheets (CS) were injected or surgically grafted, respectively, into the left ovarian bursa of 6–8 week-old, female C57BL/6 black mice and evaluated at 8 and 12 weeks after engraftment. Tumor volumes at 8 weeks were as follows: 30.712±18.800 mm3 versus 55.837±10.711 mm3 for ICS and CS, respectively, p=0.0990 (n=5). At 12 weeks, tumor volumes were 128.129±44.018 mm3 versus 283.953±71.676 mm3 for ICS and CS, respectively, p=0.0112 (n=5). The ovarian weights at 8 and 12 weeks were 0.02138±0.01038 g versus 0.04954±0....