Introduction to Mathematical Oncology

Chapter 9

Models of Chemotherapy

Modern chemotherapy and antibiotics arose in the same era, between the two world wars through World War II. The sulfonamides were introduced in 1935, and penicillin followed in 1940. The era immediately before and after World War II was revolutionary in the treatment of infectious disease.1 Rapidly fading was the therapeutic nihilism of the previous era, and many once deadly diseases were now easily curable. As Papac points out in her review of the beginnings of cancer chemotherapy [57], there was a (sadly doomed) hope that the “magic bullet” concept enjoying so much success in antimicrobial therapy would be applicable to cancers. Despite (and partly because of) their success, from the moment of their introduction, ...