Fig. 1

Overview of the study design and the patient sample. a A surgically resected tumor sample from a metastatic nodule on the patient’s neck was received for the study. Tumor cells were isolated on day of surgery and used immediately for ex vivo drug screening of 1160 drugs. 2D and 3D cell culture assay approaches were used in parallel to evaluate reproducibility of the results. Image-based assays and the enzymatic cell viability assay results were normalized using growth rate normalization. b Left: Haematoxylin & eosin staining of the metastatic urachal adenocarcinoma tissue showing poorly differentiated neoplastic cells, bar 250 μm. Right; transmitted light microscopy image of the tumor derived cell culture at day 4 after dissociation of the cells, bar 100 μm