Optimal chemotherapy and immunotherapy schedules for a cancer‐obesity model with Caputo time fractional derivative

Abstract

<jats:p>This work presents a new mathematical model to depict the effect of obesity on cancerous tumor growth when chemotherapy and immunotherapy have been administered. We consider an optimal control problem to destroy the tumor population and minimize the drug dose over a finite time interval. The constraint is a model including tumor cells, immune cells, fat cells, and chemotherapeutic and immunotherapeutic drug concentrations with the Caputo time fractional derivative. We investigate the existence and stability of the equilibrium points, namely, tumor‐free equilibrium and coexisting equilibrium, analytically. We discretize the cancer‐obesity model using the L1 method. Simulation results of the proposed model are presented to compare three different treatment strategies: chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and their combination. In addition, we investigate the effect of the differentiation order <jats:italic>α</jats:italic> and the value of the decay rate of the amount of chemotherapeutic drug to the value of the cost functional. We find out the optimal treatment schedule in case of chemotherapy and immunotherapy.</jats:p>