Title :
Taking a break from chemotherapy to fight drug-resistance: The cases of Cancer and HIV/AIDS
Author :
Hadjiandreou, Marios M. ; Mitsis, Georgios D.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
Abstract :
In this work, we present how optimized treatment interruptions during chemotherapy may be used to control drug-resistance, a major challenge for clinicians worldwide. Specifically, we examine resistance in cancer and HIV/AIDS. For each disease, we use mathematical models alongside real data to represent the respective complex biological phenomena and optimal control algorithms to design optimized treatment schedules aiming at controlling disease progression and patient death. In both diseases, it is shown that the key to controlling resistance is the optimal management of the frequency and magnitude of treatment interruptions as a way to facilitate the interplay between the competitive resistant/sensitive strains.
Keywords :
cancer; drugs; medical control systems; optimal control; patient treatment; physiological models; HIV-AIDS; biological phenomena; cancer; chemotherapy; disease progression; drug-resistance; mathematical model; optimal control algorithms; patient death; Cancer; Drugs; Human immunodeficiency virus; Immune system; Sociology; Statistics; Tumors;
Conference_Titel :
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2013 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE
Conference_Location :
Osaka
DOI :
10.1109/EMBC.2013.6609471