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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Sep 12.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Clin Oncol. 2016 Jul 5;14(1):57–66. doi: 10.1038/nrclinonc.2016.96

Figure 1. Clinical impact of drug combinations on the tumour.

Figure 1

The size of the patient tumour is demarcated within the illustrated human cartoon. Drugs A and B are colour-coded as shown. While drugs in a given combination will have common effects on a proportion of clones of tumour cells, they can have differential effects on other clones thus influencing clonal evolution owing to selective pressure. The ultimate common readout is the size of the tumour and its rate of growth that eventually translates to progression-free survival and overall survival. The effects of clinically used combinations can be broadly classified as synthetically lethal, synergistic, additive, or mildly antagonistic.