A STUDY ON A GENE THERAPY MODEL FOR THE COMBINED TREATMENT OF CANCER

Abstract

This paper addresses a gene therapy model under different cancer treatment com- binations, considering effector cell and cancer cell populations. A gene therapy model has been modified by introducing radiotherapy and mAb drug treatment, respectively. The qualitative behaviour of the model under gene therapy, radio-genic therapy, and mAb-gene therapy is ex- amined at each of the equilibrium points of the model. Analytical findings have been verified numerically. In addition, the system’s dynamics have been investigated for different values of the treatment parameters. Our results reveal that the optimum level of immunotherapy can eradicate cancer cells from the body for the gene therapy model. Besides these findings, we have also found that combining radiotherapy, immunotherapy, and gene therapy could be a better cancer treatment strategy. For mAb-gene therapy, two scenarios have been presented in which the applied treatment can suppress cancer growth to zero.