Avascular tumor
Why study Cancer?
The US National Center for Health Statistics lists Cancer as the second most common cause of death, responsible for 574,743 deaths in 2010. Understanding the formation and development of cancerous tumors will allow health professionals to better detect, diagnose, and treat cancer in its early stages. As avascular tumors (tumors without any blood vessels in them) grow rapidly, the cells inside start dying. Eventually these dead and dying cells create a necrotic core in the tumor. The formation of this necrotic core is an important phenomenon because it can often bee seen in xrays and mammograms allowing heath care professionals to detect and diagnose the cancer.
Development of The Necrotic Core
To model the formation of a necrotic core in the center of a tumor. Our model keeps track of four different cell states:
Proliferating (Blue) Represents a healthy growing cell. Proliferating cells consume glucose to grow. When they reach a specified volume they divide into two daughter cells that are both also in the proliferating state.
Stasis (Green) Represents a cell in an environment where there is not enough glucose to continue growing, but sufficient to maintain the life and functions of the cell. After become static the volume of these cells don't change. These cells also never divide.
Necrotic (Yellow) Represents a cell in an environment where there is not enough glucose for the cell to survive. Necrotic cells are starving and as a result their volume is decreasing.
Calcified (Red) Represents the dead remains of a cell. These calcified remains have increased adhesion to each other and as a result often form clumps near the center of the tumor. Each calcified cell has very low volume.
The following video shows a cross section of an avascular tumor simulation modeled in Biocellion. Proliferation, necrosis and calcification processes are demonstrated in this video.
