Optimal Strategy and Benefit of Pulsed Therapy Depend On Tumor Heterogeneity and Aggressiveness at Time of Treatment Initiation.

ABSTRACT: Therapeutic resistance is a fundamental obstacle in cancer treatment. Tumors that initially respond to treatment may have a preexisting resistant subclone or acquire resistance during treatment, making relapse theoretically inevitable. Here, we investigate treatment strategies that may delay relapse using mathematical modeling. We find that for a single-drug therapy, pulse treatment-short, elevated doses followed by a complete break from treatment-delays relapse compared with continuous treatment with the same total dose over a length of time. For tumors treated with more than one drug, continuous combination treatment is only sometimes better than sequential treatment, while pulsed combination treatment or simply alternating between the two therapies at defined intervals delays relapse th

SUBMITTER: Mathur D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9081172 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature