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Organoids are three-dimensional (3D)miniaturized versions of organs or tissues that are derived from cells with stem potential and can self-organize and differentiate into 3D cell masses, recapitulating the morphology and functions of their in vivo counterparts. Organoid culture is an emerging 3D culture technology, and organoids derived from various organs and tissues, such as the brain, lung, heart, liver, and kidney, have been generated. Compared with traditional bidimensional culture, organoid culture systems have the unique advantage of conserving parental gene expression and mutation characteristics, as well as long-term maintenance of the function and biological characteristics of the parental cells in vitro. All these features of organoids open up new opportunities for drug discovery, large-scale drug screening, and precision medicine. Another major application of organoids is disease modeling, and especially various hereditary diseases that are difficult to model in vitro have been modeled with organoids by combining genome editing technologies. Herein, we introduce the development and current advances in the organoid technology field. We focus on the applications of organoids in basic biology and clinical research, and also highlight their limitations and future perspectives. We hope that this review can provide a valuable reference for the developments and applications of organoids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It has been proven that tumor necrosis is associated with poor prognoses in various solid malignant tumors. However, the prognostic effect of tumor necrosis in hepato-biliary-pancreatic cancers is still unclear. Therefore, this study was performed to evaluate the associations of tumor necrosis with survival outcomes and clinicopathological features in patients with hepato-biliary-pancreatic cancers. Methods: Based on the PRISMA statement, eligible studies were identified from PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science from inception until January 2023. The pooled hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) were calculated to assess the connection between tumor necrosis and hepato-biliary-pancreatic cancers. We then choose which effects model to use to generate pooled HRs and 95% CIs, depending on data heterogeneity. Results: In total, 6497 articles were identified, 10 of which were included in this meta-analysis. Our results suggested that the presence of tumor necrosis predicted a poorer outcome for overall survival (HR = 1.54, 95% CI = 1.35-1.77, p < 0.001) and recurrence-free survival (HR = 1.69, 95% CI = 1.37-2.08, p < 0.001). In addition, tumor necrosis was correlated with larger tumor size, a higher frequency of lymph node metastasis, poorer histologic differentiation, and higher recurrence and metastasis rates. Conclusion: Our meta-analysis suggests that hepato-biliary-pancreatic cancer patients with tumor necrosis have dismal survival outcomes, and that their tumors have aggressive biological behaviors. Tumor necrosis has the potential to be a promising biomarker for forecasting poor prognosis in these patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]