Optimal control analysis of a cancer chemotherapy problem

The biologically based model due to Cox and co-workers is used in this study of a cancer chemotherapy problem involving the continuous delivery of an anticancer drug. A performance criterion is introduced to measure the effectiveness of therapy while penalizing excessive usage of drug. Optimal control theory is used to obtain information on the nature of the controller, which is related to the amount of drug to be infused from a drug-delivery device.