Mathematical modeling of cardio-oncology: Modeling the systemic effects of cancer therapeutics on the cardiovascular system

Abstract

Cardiotoxicity is a common side-effect of many cancer therapeutics; however, to-date there has been very little push to understand the mechanisms underlying this group of pathologies. This has led to the emergence of cardio-oncology, a field of medicine focused on understanding the effects of cancer and its treatment on the human heart. Here, we describe how mechanistic modeling approaches have been applied to study open questions in the cardiovascular system and how these approaches are being increasingly applied to advance knowledge of the underlying effects of cancer treatments on the human heart. A variety of mechanistic, mathematical modeling techniques have been applied to explore the link between common cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, radiation, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy, and cardiotoxicity, nevertheless there is limited coverage in the different types of cardiac dysfunction that may be associated with these treatments. Moreover, cardiac modeling has a rich heritage of mathematical modeling and is well suited for the further development of novel approaches for understanding the cardiotoxicities associated with cancer therapeutics. There are many opportunities to combine mechanistic, bottom-up approaches with data-driven, top-down approaches to improve personalized, precision oncology to better understand, and ultimately mitigate, cardiac dysfunction in cancer patients.