In Silico Investigations of Multi-Drug Adaptive Therapy Protocols

Simple Summary Modern "adaptive therapy" approaches to cancer therapy rely on adjusting the dose of drugs as the size of the tumor changes. They hold the promise of transforming cancer from an acute lethal disease to a chronic disease we could live with, but not die from. Previous adaptive therapy experiments have used a single drug. We set out to explore how to best combine multiple drugs in these strategies. Unfortunately, there are far too many possible ways we might combine drugs in adaptive therapies to be evaluated with clinical trials. Instead, we used computer simulations of how cancers evolve in response to therapies to identify the most promising strategies that should be tested in mouse experiments and in clinical trials in the future. These promising strategies were not specific to any particular drug or particular type of cancer, and so may have general applicability for virtually all cancers. The standard of care for cancer patients aims to eradicate the tumor by killing the maximum number of cancer cells using the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of a drug. MTD causes significant toxicity and selects for resistant cells, eventually making the tumor refractory to treatment. Adaptive therapy aims to maximize time to progression (TTP), by maintaining sensitive cells to compete with resistant cells. We explored both dose modulation (DM) protocols and fixed dose (FD) interspersed with drug holiday protocols. In contrast to previous single drug protocols, we explored the determinants of success of two-drug adaptive therapy protocols, using an agent-based model. In almost all cases, DM protocols (but not FD protocols) increased TTP relative to MTD. DM protocols worked well when there was more competition, with a higher cost of resistance, greater cell turnover, and when crowded proliferating cells could replace their neighbors. The amount that the drug dose was changed, mattered less. The more sensitive the protocol was to tumor burden changes, the better. In general, protocols that used as little drug as possible, worked best. Preclinical experiments should test these predictions, especially dose modulation protocols, with the goal of generating successful clinical trials for greater cancer control.