English

Optimal control on a brain tumor growth model with lactate metabolism, viscoelastic effects, and tissue damage

Analysis of PDEs 2025-03-24 v1 Optimization and Control

Abstract

In this paper, we study an optimal control problem for a brain tumor growth model that incorporates lactate metabolism, viscoelastic effects, and tissue damage. The PDE system, introduced in [G. Cavalleri, P. Colli, A. Miranville, E. Rocca, On a Brain Tumor Growth Model with Lactate Metabolism, Viscoelastic Effects, and Tissue Damage (2025)], couples a Fisher-Kolmogorov type equation for tumor cell density with a reaction-diffusion equation for the lactate, a quasi-static force balance governing the displacement, and a nonlinear differential inclusion for tissue damage. The control variables, representing chemotherapy and a lactate-targeting drug, influence tumor progression and treatment response. Starting from well-posedness, regularity, and continuous dependence results already established, we define a suitable cost functional and prove the existence of optimal controls. Then, we analyze the differentiability of the control-to-state operator and establish a necessary first-order condition for treatment optimality.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.17049,
  title  = {Optimal control on a brain tumor growth model with lactate metabolism, viscoelastic effects, and tissue damage},
  author = {Giulia Cavalleri and Alain Miranville},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.17049},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

30 pages. The keywords are: tumor growth models, lactate kinetics, mechanical effects, damage, optimal control, adjoint system, necessary optimality conditions