Assessment of antitumor activity for tumor xenograft studies using exponential growth models.

In preclinical tumor xenograft experiments, the antitumor activity of the tested agents is often assessed by endpoints such as tumor doubling time, tumor growth delay (TGD), and log10 cell kill (LCK). In tumor xenograft literature, the values of these endpoints are presented without any statistical inference, which ignores the noise in the experimental data. However, using exponential growth models, these endpoints can be quantified by their growth curve parameters, thus allowing parametric inference, such as an interval estimate, to be used to assess the antitumor activity of the treatment.