Mathematical modeling of the treatment response of resection plus combined chemotherapy and different types of radiation therapy in a glioblastoma patient

Abstract

Background: Gliomas are the most common brain tumors, which vary from low to high-grade. Despite the improvements in imaging techniques in the last decade, all parts of the tumor are not visible in these images, due to having a threshold of detection often lower than most of the tumor. Method: We simulated a brain domain to model heterogeneous growth plus gross total resection following concurrent chemo- and radiation therapy and adjuvant chemotherapy using temozolomide for a patient, diagnosed with glioblastoma, for different radiobiological alpha parameter as high, medium, and low sensitivity. The extent of difference in the result of treatment, area of the tumor, and survival time relating to those sensitivity parameters were shown. Moreover, based on the threshold of detection of MRI (T1Gd), the area of the tumor visible to this imaging technique was simulated. Furthermore, the extent of difference in the result of treatment for both conventional and hyperfractionated radiotherapy was investigated. Conclusion: The survival time of patient was increased by 2 months and more than 3 months at the lowest and highest sensitivity of radiation therapy, respectively.The result showed hyperfractionated radiotherapy was more effective than conventional radiotherapy in reducing the concentration of cancerous cells,as hyperfractionated method allows administration of higher total dose.