Despite the promising results obtained with these spheroids, the successful evaluation of these therapies will need to be addressed in more relevant 3D vascular MCTS models using MCTS-on-chip platforms. The development and assessment of acoustically mediated drug therapies have been mainly demonstrated in spheroids made up of tumor cells only. Various spheroid formation methods enable the easy and reproducible generation of spheroids and MCTSs.

We discuss the limitations of the current studies and future perspectives. The present review first focuses on current spheroid formation methods and then on in vitro investigations exploiting spheroids and MCTS for designing and validating acoustically mediated drug therapies. These models partly reflect the tridimensional architecture of tumors, their heterogeneity and their microenvironment, which can alter the intratumoral biodistribution, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of drugs. Tumor spheroids as well as multicellular tumor spheroids (MCTSs) are promising 3D in vitro tumor models for drug screening, drug design, drug targeting, drug toxicity, and validation of drug delivery methods.

Substance designer 3d model