Applying Physical Intuition to Biology: Macroscopic and Mesoscopic Modeling of Cancer Growth

SILVIA ADRIANA MENCHÓN; CARLOS ALBERTO CONDAT

Actas de la Academia Nacional de Ciencias, Argentina

Año: 2007 p. 107 - 113

0325-7533

Cancer growth is a complex phenomenon, which is controlled by the cellular competition for available nutrients and sometimes hindered or stopped by the action of external agents, i.e., therapies. Its theoretical description can be carried out at different levels. Here we review the main strategies that have been recently developed to model tumor growth. Macroscopic modeling considers the tumor as a single entity, whose behavior can be predicted in terms of a few characteristic parameters and of the interaction of the tumor with its environment. Mesoscopic modeling considers the behavior of and the competition among cell clusters. It is based on the formulation of a set of rules that describe the evolution of these clusters. These rules are implemented as coupled nonlinear difference equations that must be solved computationally. A manifold of possible cancer growth morphologies emerges from these simulations. While both approaches have shown their usefulness, the elucidation of their interrelations remains an open challenge.