Cancer Cell Growth
Cancer research is an area of biology where growth curve analysis plays an important role. In many types of cancer, the rate at which tumors shrink following chemotherapy is related to the rate of tumor growth before treatment. Tumors that grow rapidly are generally more sensitive to the toxic effects that conventional anticancer drugs have on the cancer cells. Many conventional anticancer drugs (for example, 5-Fluoro Uracil) interfere with DNA replication and can cause the death of cells that attempt to replicate their DNA and divide. A rapidly growing tumor will have more actively dividing cells and more cell death upon exposure to such anticancer drugs.
In the example shown in Figure 2, a tumor is found after the cell growth rate has slowed. Most of the cancer cells are removed by surgery. The remaining cancer cells begin to proliferate rapidly and cancer chemotherapy is started. Many tumor cells are killed by the chemotherapy, but eventually some cancer cells that are resistant to the chemotherapy drug begin to grow rapidly. The chemotherapy is no longer useful and is discontinued.
Read more about this topic: Growth Curve
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