title: Predicting the concentration level of an anti-cancer drug during treatment of a living organism.
abstract: For many drugs used in chemotherapy the difference between the therapeutic concentration and the toxic concentration is small. During treatment of a living organism from cancer by using chemotherapy, it is therefore important to foresee the therapeutic concentration in the organism as a function of the injected therapeutic drug dose. This article provides a mathematical dynamic description of the interaction between the organism and the drug, and analyses the dynamics by using ordinary differential equations. The model is tested in a clinical situation where digitoxin is used as the therapeutic drug. The agreement with this experiment is good.
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, Kjeller, Norway. john-f.moxnes@ffi.no
authors.forename: John F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Moxnes
authors.forename: Kjell
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hausken
mesh_terms: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D004074:Digitoxin / Q000494:pharmacology; D004791:Enzyme Inhibitors / Q000494:pharmacology; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy*; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D004791:Enzyme Inhibitors; D004074:Digitoxin