Tumour growth and chemotherapy

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