2020/08/20 by José Trobia, Enrique C. Gabrick, Trobia, José +23
Mathematics · Immunology and Microbiology · #Mathematical Biology Tumor Growth #Immune cells in cancer #Immune Cell Function and Interaction
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2008.09295
Cancer is a term used to refer to a large set of diseases. The cancerous\ncells grow and divide and, as a result, they form tumours that grow in size.\nThe immune system recognise the cancerous cells and attack them, though, it can\nbe weakened by the cancer. One type of cancer treatment is chemotherapy, which\nuses drugs to kill cancer cells. Clinical, experimental, and theoretical\nresearch has been developed to understand the dynamics of cancerous cells with\nchemotherapy treatment, as well as the interaction between tumour growth and\nimmune system. We study a mathematical model that describes the cancer growth,\nimmune system response, and chemotherapeutic agents. The immune system is\ncomposed of resting cells that are converted to hunting cells to combat the\ncancer. In this work, we consider drug sensitive and resistant cancer cells. We\nshow that the tumour growth can be controlled not only by means of different\nchemotherapy protocols, but also by the immune system that attacks both\nsensitive and resistant cancer cells. Furthermore, for all considered\nprotocols, we demonstrate that the time delay from resting to hunting cells\nplays a crucial role in the combat against cancer cells.\n