Kinetic modeling and numerical simulations to predict patient-specific responses to radiotherapy

Abstract

Recent research indicates that quiescent tumor cells are significantly less radiosensitive with a greater repair capacity than proliferative cells. In order to better predict patient-specific responses to radiotherapy, we develop a mathematical model with treatment terms to describe dynamical behaviors of tumor growth. The global stabilities of the tumor-free equilibrium, the tumor-present equilibrium and the corresponding sufficient criteria are obtained. In addition, we simulate volumetric imaging data from 12 head-and-neck cancer patients and estimate the patient-specific responses to radiotherapy. Results indicate that radiosensitivity of proliferative cells is a critical factor that determines a successful radiotherapy. By comparison with previous simulation results, we find that the model presented in this paper is more suitable to describe the radiotherapy procedure of head-and-neck cancer. Finally, we discuss the influences of different radiotherapy strategies on therapeutic effect. The results show that treatment strategies with large dose or short treatment cycle can obtain better treatment effect.