# Evolutionary dynamics of cancer in response to targeted combination therapy

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-bozic-elife/  
OnCo record `paper-bozic-elife` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Paper cited by one technology page, indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 23805382 and published in eLife; the citing page links this DOI, which is how the record was matched.

## Summary

In solid tumors, targeted treatments can lead to dramatic regressions, but responses are often short-lived because resistant cancer cells arise. The major strategy proposed for overcoming resistance is combination therapy. We present a mathematical model describing the evolutionary dynamics of lesions in response to treatment. We first studied 20 melanoma patients receiving vemurafenib. We then applied our model to an independent set of pancreatic, colorectal, and melanoma cancer patients with metastatic disease. We find that dual therapy results in long-term disease control for most patients, if there are no single mutations that cause cross-resistance to both drugs; in patients with large disease burden, triple therapy is needed. We also find that simultaneous therapy with two drugs is much more effective than sequential therapy. Our results provide realistic expectations for the efficacy of new drug combinations and inform the design of trials for new cancer therapeutics. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00747.001.

Indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 23805382 (DOI 10.7554/elife.00747). Matched by DOI alone: one technology page cites this DOI among its external links (the pages are listed under Related), and this page was written so that the citation resolves inside OnCo. No figure has been checked by an editor.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-09-22
- Tags: europepmc-ingest
- Journal: eLife
- Year: 2013
- DOI: 10.7554/elife.00747
- Authors: Bozic I, Reiter JG, Allen B, et al.
- What it means: One technology page on OnCo cites this paper by its DOI; this record gives the citation a page of its own so a reader can follow it without leaving OnCo. Read the abstract above alongside the citing page listed under Related; the record was created automatically from the Europe PMC entry and its figures have not been checked by hand.
- Caveats: Matched to the citing OnCo records by DOI alone; the summary reproduces the Europe PMC abstract and no figure has been verified against the full paper.

## Sources

- Elife 2013: https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.00747
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23805382/
- Europe PMC: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/23805382

## Connected records

- technologies: [Evolutionary dynamics of drug resistance](https://onco.cc/technologies/drug-resistance-dynamics/)
- journals: [eLife](https://onco.cc/journals/elife/)

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