Computational modeling of the growth of breast tumors with chemotherapy administered in cycles

Resumo

Breast cancer is a disease caused by the disordered multiplication of breast cells. It is the most frequent
cause of death from cancer among women in the world, affecting 2.1 million women each year. Considering
the impact of breast cancer on global health, it is necessary to develop mathematical models that simulate the
growth of breast tumors in response to treatment factors. Several methods have been used, such as those based on
differential equations. Because of the complexity of tumor kinetics, some mathematical models seek to understand
their behavior through application of laws that assist the study of chemotherapy treatment regimens and the action
of drugs. This paper presents a model based on ordinary differential equations (ODE) to simulate breast tumor
growth in two chemotherapy treatment regimens, executed in cycles, to analyze the effects of drugs on tumor and
healthy tissue. To solve the ODE system, the fourth-order numerical Runge-Kutta method was used, implemented
in MATLAB. The results show that chemotherapy treatment regimens comprised of two or more drugs (AC and
FAC protocols) are more effective than only administering cyclophosphamide. The two protocols caused greater
reduction of tumor cells and less destruction in healthy tissue.