Deterministic Chaos and Its Possible Clinical Applications

摘要

Deterministic chaos is a phenomenon within which a simple rule generates complex behavior. There are several typical characteristics of deterministic chaos. These characteristics include short-term predictability, aperiodicity, sensitive dependence on initial conditions, long-term unpredictability, boundedness, self similarity, and denseness of periodic orbits. Because deterministic chaos can appear in various nonlinear systems, mathematical models of diseases may also show deterministic chaos under certain circumstances. In this talk, we briefly review the typical characteristics of deterministic chaos. Then, we discuss several possible scenarios for applying ideas of deterministic chaos to treat diseases. Especially, we introduce a mathematical model of intermittent androgen suppression for prostate cancer and present an optimal scheduling based on this model.