tumour growth and chemotherapy
Last reviewed 01/2018
Tumour growth can be described in terms of the multiple of functions of:
- the cell cycle time, T
- the growth fraction, G
- the rate of cell loss, L i.e.: fT x fG x fL = tumour doubling time
G is proportional to tumour mass, such that larger tumours have a smaller growth fraction - Gompertzian growth. Thus small tumours grow faster
From this, problems with chemotherapy in solid tumours are as follows:
- low growth fraction
- poor drug penetration
- intrinsic drug resisitance
- develepment of drug resistance