Paclitaxel effect on a leukemia cell line: importance of paclitaxel concentration

The efficacy of a drug may be a complex function of the length of drug exposure and the drug concentration. One traditional way to model these variables together has been to look at the area under the curve (AUC) when drug concentration is plotted against time. Experiments in an HL60 leukemia cell model suggest that, for the antineoplastic drug paclitaxel, AUC is not a good predictor of efficacy.