< Back to Article

Tumor Growth Rate Determines the Timing of Optimal Chronomodulated Treatment Schedules

Figure 5

Treatment outcomes with different intervals between drug administrations.

(A, C) Outcomes for fast (A) and slow (C) growing tumors, for different first day delivery times () and intervals () between administrations. The treatment outcome function used normalized, scaled responses and from simulations. Low values (blue) indicate bad treatment outcomes and high values (red), good ones. Outcomes for three intervals with 4.8 h difference (white lines) are compared: 19.2 h, 24 h, and 28.8 h. Eq. 2 predicts the location of the best response, as a function of (thin white lines). (B, D) Outcomes at 24 h intervals show large amplitudes while small amplitudes occur at 19.2 h and 28.8 h intervals. For fast growing tumors, an interval of 28.8 h is a good alternative to 24 h (B, dotted line), but for slow growing tumors, an interval of 24 h is better (D, solid line).

doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000712.g005