Maximum therapeutic effect of glioma treatment by radio-frequency electric field

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential of radio-frequency electric fields as a treatment for glioma, analyzing how cell behavior affects therapeutic effectiveness through a continuous time random walk model.

Contribution

It introduces a mathematical framework to evaluate how cell migration and proliferation impact the efficacy of electric field therapy against glioma.

Findings

Migration-proliferation dichotomy weakens electric field treatment effectiveness

Continuous time random walk model reveals limitations in current therapy

Invasive cells with high motility are less affected by electric fields

Abstract

An influence of a radio-frequency electric field on glioma - brain cancer development is considered. A specific task emerging here is whether this new medical technology is effective against invasive cells with a high motility, when switching between migrating and proliferating phenotypes takes place. This therapeutic effect is studied in the framework of a continuous time random walk. It is shown that the migration proliferation dichotomy of cancer cells leads to the weakening of the electric field treatment.