Solid tumor models for assessment of different treatment modalities: therapeutic strategy for sequential chemotherapy with radiotherapy.

A therapeutic strategy for combined radiotherapy and chemotherapy of experimental solid tumors has been devised. More effective utilization of combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy may be realized clinically if comparable information is obtained in man. The overall treatment efficiency of successive courses of treatment has been determined by a method that defines tumor response quantitatively over an entire spectrum of tumor responses. The findings of this study have shown that an individual tumor that responds well to the first course of therapy will respond well to the second and third courses of combined modality therapy. Various solid tumors in different animal species have demonstrated variability of response to treatment, analogous to the many types of response found clinically.