Modeling multi-mutation and drug resistance: analysis of some case studies

Drug-induced resistance is one the major obstacles that may lead to therapeutic failure during cancer treatment. Different genetic alterations occur when tumor cells divide. Among new generations of tumor cells, some may express intrinsic resistance to a specific chemotherapeutic agent. Also, some tumor cells may carry a gene that can develop resistance induced by the therapeutic drug. The methods by which the therapeutic approaches need to be revised in the occurrence of drug induced resistance is still being explored. Previously, we introduced a model that expresses only intrinsic drug resistance in a conjoint normal-tumor cell setting. The focus of this work is to expand our previously reported model to include terms that can express both intrinsic drug resistance and drug-induced resistance. Additionally, we assess the response of the cell population as a function of time under different treatment strategies and discuss the outcomes