Precision Medicine with Imprecise Therapy: Computational Modeling for Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer.

Precision Medicine with Imprecise Therapy: Computational Modeling for Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer. Transl Oncol. 2018 Apr 16;11(3):732-742 Authors: McKenna MT, Weis JA, Brock A, Quaranta V, Yankeelov TE Abstract Medical oncology is in need of a mathematical modeling toolkit that can leverage clinically-available measurements to optimize treatment selection and schedules for patients. Just as the therapeutic choice has been optimized to match tumor genetics, the delivery of those therapeutics should be optimized based on patient-specific pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic properties. Under the current approach to treatment response planning and assessment, there does not exist an efficient method to consolidate biomarker changes into a holistic understanding of treatment response. While the majority of research on chemotherapies focus on cellular and genetic mechanisms of resistance, there are numerous patient-specific and tumor-specific measures that contribute to treatment response. New approaches that consolidate multimodal information into actionable data are needed. Mathematical modeling offers a solution to this problem. In this perspective, we first focus on the particular case of breast cancer to highlight how mathematical models have shaped the current approaches to treatment. Then we compare chemotherapy to radiation therapy. Finally, we identify opportunities to improve chemotherapy treatments using the model of radiation th...
Source: Translational Oncology - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Tags: Transl Oncol Source Type: research