Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients greatly benefit from the treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) targeting the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). However, emergence of acquired resistance inevitable occurs after long-term treatment in most patients and limits clinical improvement. In the present study, resistance to drug treatment in patient-derived NSCLC xenograft mice was assessed and modeling and simulation was applied to understand the dynamics of drug resistance as a basis to explore more beneficial drug regimen. Two semi-mechanistic models were fitted to tumor growth inhibition profiles during and after treatment with erlotinib or gefitinib. The base model proposes that as a result of drug treatment, tumor cells stop proliferating and undergo several stages of damage before they eventually die. The acquired resistance model adds a resistance term to the base model which assumes that resistant cells are emerging from the pool of damaged tumor cells. As a result, tumor cells sensitive to drug treatment will either die or be converted to a drug resistant cell population which is proliferating at a slower growth rate as compared to the sensitive cells. The observed tumor growth profiles were better described by the resistance model and emergence of resistance was concluded. In simulation studies, the selection of resistant cells was explored as well as the time-variant fraction of resistant over sensitive cells. The proposed model provides insight into the dynamic processes of emerging resistance. It predicts tumor regrowth during treatment driven by the selection of resistant cells and explains why faster tumor regrowth may occur after discontinuation of TKI treatment. Finally, it is shown how the semi-mechanistic model can be used to explore different scenarios and to identify optimal treatment schedules in clinical trials.
Keywords: Acquired resistance; PKPD model; Patient-derived tumor xenograft mice; Simulation; Tumor growth inhibition model; Tyrosine kinase inhibitor.