SENSITIVITY OF COMBINED CHEMO- AND ANTIANGIOGENIC THERAPY RESULTS IN DIFFERENT MODELS DESCRIBING CANCER GROWTH

This paper is concerned with analysis of two anticancer therapy models focused on sensitivity of therapy outcome with respect to model structure and parameters. Realistic periodic therapies are considered, combining cytotoxic and antiangiogenic agents, defined on a fixed time horizon. Tumor size at the end of therapy and average tumor size calculated over therapy horizon are chosen to represent therapy outcome. Sensitivity analysis has been performed numerically, concentrating on model parameters and structure at one hand, and on treatment protocol parameters, on the other. The results show that sensitivity of the therapy outcome highly depends on the model structure, helping to discern a good model. Moreover, it is possible to use this analysis to find a good protocol in case of heterogeneous tumors.