BioModels

We formulate and analyse a mathematical model describing immune response to avasculartumour under the influence of immunotherapy and chemotherapy and their combinations aswell as vaccine treatments. The effect of vaccine therapy is considered as a parametricperturbation of the model. In the case of a weak immune response, neither immunotherapy norchemotherapy is found to cause tumour regression to a small size, which would be below theclinically detectable threshold. Numerical simulations show that the efficiency of vaccinetherapy depends on both the tumour size and the condition of immune system as well as on theresponse of the organism to vaccination. In particular, we found that vaccine therapy becomesmore effective when used without time delay from a prescribed date of vaccination after surgeryand is ineffective without preliminary treatment. For a strong immune response, our modelpredicts the tumour remission under vaccine therapy. Our study of successive chemo/immuno,immuno/chemo and concurrent chemoimmunotherapy shows that the chemo/immunosequence is more effective while concurrent chemoimmunotherapy is more sparing.

• Different Strategies for Cancer Treatment: Mathematical Modelling
• O. G. Isaeva and V. A. Osipov
• Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine , 12/ 2009 , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , pages: 253-272 , DOI: 10.1080/17486700802536054
Affiliation: Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna,Moscow Region, Russia
Abstract: We formulate and analyse a mathematical model describing immune response to avascular tumour under the influence of immunotherapy and chemotherapy and their combinations as well as vaccine treatments. The effect of vaccine therapy is considered as a parametric perturbation of the model. In the case of a weak immune response, neither immunotherapy nor chemotherapy is found to cause tumour regression to a small size, which would be below the clinically detectable threshold. Numerical simulations show that the efficiency of vaccine therapy depends on both the tumour size and the condition of immune system as well as on the response of the organism to vaccination. In particular, we found that vaccine therapy becomes more effective when used without time delay from a prescribed date of vaccination after surgery and is ineffective without preliminary treatment. For a strong immune response, our model predicts the tumour remission under vaccine therapy. Our study of successive chemo/immuno, immuno/chemo and concurrent chemoimmunotherapy shows that the chemo/immuno sequence is more effective while concurrent chemoimmunotherapy is more sparing. Vol. 10, No. 4, December 2009, 253–272