Version 1
: Received: 31 January 2019 / Approved: 1 February 2019 / Online: 1 February 2019 (10:29:06 CET)
How to cite:
Gatenby, R.; Brown, J.S. Eradicating Metastatic Cancer and the Evolutionary Dynamics of Extinction. Preprints2019, 2019020011. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201902.0011.v1
Gatenby, R.; Brown, J.S. Eradicating Metastatic Cancer and the Evolutionary Dynamics of Extinction. Preprints 2019, 2019020011. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201902.0011.v1
Gatenby, R.; Brown, J.S. Eradicating Metastatic Cancer and the Evolutionary Dynamics of Extinction. Preprints2019, 2019020011. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201902.0011.v1
APA Style
Gatenby, R., & Brown, J.S. (2019). Eradicating Metastatic Cancer and the Evolutionary Dynamics of Extinction. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201902.0011.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Gatenby, R. and Joel S. Brown. 2019 "Eradicating Metastatic Cancer and the Evolutionary Dynamics of Extinction" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201902.0011.v1
Abstract
We propose the traditional goal of cancer therapists to develop a single drug or drug combination that can, by itself, eliminate all cancer cells within a host has neglected potential treatments that may achieve curative outcomes by strategically combining agents that are individually effective but non-curative. We derive basic principles for such an approach from the eco-evolutionary dynamics of background extinctions in which a “first strike” reduces the size and heterogeneity of the initial population and is followed immediately by demographic and ecological “second strikes” that push the population below an extinction threshold. This proposed strategy appears identical to the empirically-derived curative therapy in childhood Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia.
Keywords
Cancer treatment, resistance to treatment, evolution of resistance, background extinctions
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Oncology and Oncogenics
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
