Abstract
Objective: Combination drug therapy plays an important role in treating various deadly diseases such as cancer. When drugs are combined, synergistic, additive or antagonistic interactions occur. The determination of these interactions and the quantitative analysis of drug combinations are not simple. The lack of standardization in terminology, experimental protocols, and models as well as data analysis are major challenges. In this study, the current mathematical and statistical methods concerning the study and analysis of synergistic drug combinations are reviewed. Following, the pharmacological and mathematical concepts necessary to understand the widely used methods are also reviewed, and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. Finally, the main issues to be considered in the analysis of drug combinations are explained.
Result and Discussion: Because there is no optimal suitable model for all possible experimental conditions, we hope that the quantitative analysis of drug combinations will be facilitated by the collective use of the different approaches discussed here. We believe that this study will serve as a reference for the analysis of drug combinations.