Simulating tumor growth in confined heterogeneous environments
Simulating tumor growth in confined heterogeneous environments
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DOI：
10.1088/1478-3975/5/3/036010
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发表时间：
2008-09-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Torquato, Salvatore
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Gevertz, Jana L.;Gillies, George T.;Torquato, Salvatore
计算肿瘤模型的圣杯是开发一种可用于临床预测肿瘤进展并提出个性化最佳治疗策略的模拟工具。为了开发这样的预测模型，必须考虑到肿瘤生长过程中的许多复杂过程。一个尚未被纳入肿瘤进展计算模型的交互作用是器官强加的物理限制和异质性对肿瘤生长的影响。为此，我们采用了细胞自动机算法，该算法最初被设计用于模拟球对称的肿瘤生长，并将该算法推广到包括组织形状和结构的影响。我们发现，没有考虑器官/组织几何和拓扑的模型会导致关于肿瘤扩散、形状和大小的错误结论。当肿瘤生长在靠近限制边界而不是远离限制边界时，限制对肿瘤生长的影响更加明显。因此，任何癌症进展的临床模拟工具都必须不仅考虑肿瘤生长所在器官的形状和结构，还必须考虑肿瘤在器官内的位置，才能准确地预测肿瘤的生长动力学。
The holy grail of computational tumor modeling is to develop a simulation tool that can be utilized in the clinic to predict neoplastic progression and propose individualized optimal treatment strategies. In order to develop such a predictive model, one must account for many of the complex processes involved in tumor growth. One interaction that has not been incorporated into computational models of neoplastic progression is the impact that organ-imposed physical confinement and heterogeneity have on tumor growth. For this reason, we have taken a cellular automaton algorithm that was originally designed to simulate spherically symmetric tumor growth and generalized the algorithm to incorporate the effects of tissue shape and structure. We show that models that do not account for organ/tissue geometry and topology lead to false conclusions about tumor spread, shape and size. The impact that confinement has on tumor growth is more pronounced when a neoplasm is growing close to, versus far from, the confining boundary. Thus, any clinical simulation tool of cancer progression must not only consider the shape and structure of the organ in which a tumor is growing, but must also consider the location of the tumor within the organ if it is to accurately predict neoplastic growth dynamics.