Establishment and Use of Patient-Derived Xenograft Models for Drug Testing in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

This protocol provides the steps required for the establishment of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) tumors for head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) and their utility in examining drug responses. PDXs recapitulate the heterogeneity observed in the corresponding human tumors, which makes them an ideal pre-clinical model system. This protocol outlines the detailed steps required for (1) the generation of HNSCC-PDXs, (2) the processing of tumor tissues, and (3) the expansion of PDX models into cohorts for (4) drug testing. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol please refer to Karamboulas et al. (2018).