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Tumor Progression

Tumor Progression

Tumor progression is a phenomenon where the pre-formed tumor acquires successive mutations to become clinically more aggressive and malignant. In the 1950s, Foulds first described the stepwise progression of cancer cells through successive stages.
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The Tumor Microenvironment

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Adaptive Mechanisms in Cancer Cells

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 16, 2026

Patient-Derived Tumor Explants As a "Live" Preclinical Platform for Predicting Drug Resistance in Patients

Patient-Derived Tumor Explants As a "Live" Preclinical Platform for Predicting Drug Resistance in Patients

Published on: February 7, 2021

Concepts in solid tumor evolution.

Arend Sidow¹, Noah Spies¹

¹Departments of Pathology and of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

Trends in Genetics : TIG

|March 4, 2015

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Cancer evolution drives tumor individuality, differing from organismal evolution. A simple model reveals early stochastic events and exponential growth are key to understanding tumor progression and clonal structure.

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Area of Science:

Evolutionary genetics
Cancer biology
Tumorigenesis modeling

Background:

Tumor individuality arises from evolutionary mechanisms during cancer progression.
Understanding cancer evolution requires evaluating the applicability of organismal evolutionary genetics concepts.
Existing models may not fully capture the complexities of tumor growth and clonal substructure.

Purpose of the Study:

To explore the utility and limitations of evolutionary genetics in cancer research.
To develop and apply a simplified model of tumor growth and progression.
To elucidate the impact of early stochastic events and growth dynamics on tumor development.

Main Methods:

Conceptual analysis of evolutionary genetics principles applied to cancer.
Construction of a parsimonious mathematical model for tumor growth and progression.
Computational simulations to explore model dynamics and outcomes.

Main Results:

Simulations underscore the critical role of early stochastic events in tumorigenesis.
Exponential growth dynamics were shown to dominate over linear growth and differentiation.
The model successfully explains the observed clonal substructure within tumors.

Conclusions:

A simplified evolutionary model provides valuable insights into cancer progression.
Stochasticity and exponential growth are fundamental drivers of tumor development.
The model's ability to explain clonal substructure highlights its explanatory power for tumor individuality.