Photodynamic therapy influence on anti-cancer immunity

TL;DR

This paper models tumor-immune dynamics including angiogenesis and investigates how photodynamic therapy (PDT) affects tumor size and immune response, highlighting the importance of immune strength for effective treatment.

Contribution

It introduces a mathematical model of tumor-immune interactions with angiogenesis and analyzes PDT effects through numerical simulations, emphasizing immune response strength.

Findings

Strong immune response enhances tumor shrinkage after PDT

PDT increases interleukin-2 concentration in strong immune cases

Weak immune response limits PDT effectiveness

Abstract

The system of partial differential equations describing tumor-immune dynamics with angiogenesis taken into account is presented. For spatially homogeneous case, the steady state analysis of the model is carried out. The effects of single photodynamic impact are numerically simulated. In the case of strong immune response we found that the photodynamic therapy (PDT) gives rise to the substantial shrinkage of tumor size which is accompanied by the increase of interleukin-2 concentration. On the contrary, the photodynamic stimulation of weak immune response is shown to be insufficient to reduce the tumor. These findings indicate the important role of anti-cancer immune response in the long-term tumor control after PDT.