Bezier Control Points Method to Solve Scheduling of Injections of Immunotherapeutic Agents

Abstract

Cancer immunotherapy aims at enhancing immune system to defend against the tumor. However, it is associated with injecting small doses of tumor-bearing molecules or even using drugs. The problem is that how to schedule these injections effectively and/or how to apply drugs in a way to decrease toxic side effects of drugs such that the tumor growth to be stopped or at least to be limited. Here, the theory of optimal control has been applied to find the optimal schedule of injections of an immunotherapeutic agent against cancer. The numerical method employed works for any dynamic linear system and has almost precise solution. In this work, it was tested for a well known model of the tumor immune system interaction.

Bifurcation Analysis of a Model of Cancer

“…Cancer immunotherapy is the use of the immune system to reject cancer. The main premise is stimulating the patient's immune system to attack the malignant tumor cells that are responsible for the disease (Ghomanjani, 2012).…”