Dynamic Modeling of the Angiogenic Switch and Its Inhibition by Bevacizumab

Abstract

We formulate a dynamic model of vascular tumor growth, in which the interdependence of vascular dynamics with tumor volume is considered. The model describes the angiogenic switch; thus the inhibition of the vascularization process by antiangiogenic drugs may be taken into account explicitly. We validate the model against volume measurement data originating from experiments on mice and analyze the model behavior assuming different inputs corresponding to different therapies. Furthermore, we show that a simple extension of the model is capable of considering cytotoxic and antiangiogenic drugs as inputs simultaneously in qualitatively different ways.