Mathematical modeling of tumorigenesis: mission possible

Mathematical modeling of tumorigenesis is a fast-growing area of research. This review describes recent (since July 2003) advances in this area and discusses possible implications for the field of cancer biology in general.

Broadly speaking, there are three major areas in which theory has contributed the most to cancer research: (1) modeling in the context of epidemiology and other statistical data, (2) mechanistic modeling of avascular and vascular tumor growth, and (3) modeling of cancer initiation and progression as somatic evolution. The first area uses models to fit the existing data, the second approach takes advantage of methods of physics and engineering to describe tumor growth, and the third method looks at cancer progression as a local, Darwinian evolution.

The article describes new, interesting ideas put forward in the last year, and suggests that to make the modeling effort more relevant, a better dialogue should be developed between theorists and experimental biologists. The author believes this is possible.