ReviewJournal of controlled release : official journal of the Controlled Release Society2012
Opportunities and challenges for use of tumor spheroids as models to test drug delivery and efficacy.
Review in Journal of controlled release : official journal of the Controlled Release Society, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 481 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
481 citing papers in PubMed.
- Double-coated PLGA nanoparticles with hierarchical surface architecture for CD44-targeted siRNA delivery.Drug delivery and translational research · 2026Article
- Ferritin-Based Nanomotors for Deep Glioblastoma Penetration and Enhanced Drug Delivery.Macromolecular bioscience · 2026Article
- Dual targeting of PI3K and FGFR or CDK4/6 reveals synergistic responses in HPV-positive and HPV-negative oropharyngeal cancer spheroids.Molecular therapy. Oncology · 2026Article
- An Efficient Spheroid Manufacturing Workflow for WJ-MSCs: Comparative Evaluation of Immediate 3D Aggregation and Conventional 2D Stabilization.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Three-dimensional spheroid models in breast cancer: tumor microenvironment complexity, cancer stem cell-driven resistance, and translational model integration.Journal of translational medicine · 2026Review
- Fish cell lines in aquaculture and biomedical research: A global perspective on development, repositories, and multidisciplinary applications.Molecular biology reports · 2026Review
- Symmetric cancer spheroid-fibroblast organization revealed in 3D by high-throughput microscopy.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Effects of Compression on Extracellular Matrix Synthesis by Chondrocytes and Chondrosarcoma Cells.Cartilage · 2026Article
- Spatial lipidomics with in situ segmentation for profiling doxorubicin drug effect of hepatoma carcinoma cell spheroids.Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry · 2026Article
- Dynamic pillar-perfusion platform for screening enzyme-induced self-assembling peptide therapeutics in 3D breast cancer spheroids.Bioengineering & translational medicine · 2026Article
- Opportunities and challenges for analytical chemists: organ-on-chip devices as new approach methods (NAMs) for identifying potential toxins.The Analyst · 2026Review
- FOXO1-mediated cell cycle arrest enhances osteogenic differentiation of spheroid-cultured human periodontal ligament-derived multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells.Regenerative therapy · 2026Article
- High-Throughput Generation of Tumor Spheroids via Droplet Microfluidics for siRNA-Loaded Nanomedicine Assessment.Advanced healthcare materials · 2026Article
- Cellular Snowballing: Cell Adhesion and Migration Drive the Self-Assembly of Cell-Microgel Biohybrid Spheroids.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Mesoscopic Fluorescence Imaging of Light-Triggered Chemotherapeutic Release in Cancer Spheroid Models.Pharmaceutics · 2026Article
- Application of 3D Cell Culture Techniques in Nanotoxicology: How Far Are We?Stem cell reviews and reports · 2026Review
- GSK3i combinatorial treatments affect CDK4/6 and compensatory pathways in 3D preclinical models of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.Biology open · 2026Article
- Integrated Experimental-Computational Framework for Drug Transport Quantification in 3DMicromachines · 2026Article
- Review
- Systematic investigation of the effects of neural stem cell spheroid size and density on fate specification in 3D culture.Journal of materials chemistry. B · 2026Article
421 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Multicellular spheroids are three dimensional in vitro microscale tissue analogs. The current article examines the suitability of spheroids as an in vitro platform for testing drug delivery systems. Spheroids model critical physiologic parameters present in vivo, including complex multicellular architecture, barriers to mass transport, and extracellular matrix deposition. Relative to two-dimensional cultures, spheroids also provide better target cells for drug testing and are appropriate in vitro models for studies of drug penetration. Key challenges associated with creation of uniformly sized spheroids, spheroids with small number of cells and co-culture spheroids are emphasized in the article. Moreover, the assay techniques required for the characterization of drug delivery and efficacy in spheroids and the challenges associated with such studies are discussed. Examples for the use of spheroids in drug delivery and testing are also emphasized. By addressing these challenges with possible solutions, multicellular spheroids are becoming an increasingly useful in vitro tool for drug screening and delivery to pathological tissues and organs.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.