Patient-derived xenografts: A relevant preclinical model for drug development

Identifying appropriate preclinical cancer models remains a major challenge in increasing the efficiency of drug development. a potential strategy to improve patient outcomes could be selecting the 'right' treatment in preclinical studies performed in patient-derived xenografts (pdxs) obtained by direct implants of surgically resected tumours in mice. these models maintain morphological similarities and recapitulate molecular profiling of the original tumours,thus representing a useful tool in evaluating anticancer drug response. in this review,we will present the state-of-art use of pdxs as a reliable strategy to predict clinical findings. the main advantages and limitations will also be discussed. © 2016 the author(s).