Model based smooth super-twisting control of cancer chemotherapy treatment

Abstract

Chemotherapy is one of the most efficient methods for treating cancer patients. Chemotherapy aims to eliminate cancer cells as thoroughly as possible. Delivering medications to patients' bodies through various methods, either oral or intravenous is part of the chemotherapy process. Different cell-kill hypotheses take into account the interactions of the expansion of the tumor volume, external drugs, and the rate of their eradication. For the control of drug usage and tumor volume, a model based smooth super-twisting control (MBSSTC) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, three nonlinear cell-kill mathematical models are considered in this work, including the log-kill, Norton-Simon, and E_max hypotheses subject to parametric uncertainties and exogenous perturbations. In accordance with clinical recommendations, the tumor volume follows a predefined trajectory after chemotherapy. Secondly, the MBSSTC is applied for the three cell-kill models to attain accurate trajectory tracking even in the presence of uncertainties and disturbances. Compared to conventional super-twisting control (STC), the non-smooth term is introduced in the proposed control to enhance the anti-disturbance capability. Finally, simulation comparisons are performed across the proposed MBSSTC, conventional STC, and proportional-integral (PI) control methods to show the effectiveness and merits of our designed control method.

Keywords: Cancer chemotherapy; Cell kill hypotheses; Model based smooth super-twisting control (MBSSTC); Super-twisting control (STC); Tumor volume.