Modeling Interactions among Migration, Growth and Pressure in Tumor Dynamics

Abstract

What are the biomechanical implications in the dynamics and evolution of a growing solid tumor? Although the analysis of some of the biochemical aspects related to the signaling pathways involved in the spread of tumors has advanced notably in recent times, their feedback with the mechanical aspects is a crucial challenge for a global understanding of the problem. The aim of this paper is to try to illustrate the role and the interaction between some evolutionary processes (growth, pressure, homeostasis, elasticity, or dispersion by flux-saturated and porous media) that lead to collective cell dynamics and defines a propagation front that is in agreement with the experimental data. The treatment of these topics is approached mainly from the point of view of the modeling and the numerical approach of the resulting system of partial differential equations, which can be placed in the context of the Hele-Shaw-type models. This study proves that local growth terms related to homeostatic pressure give rise to retrograde diffusion phenomena, which compete against migration through flux-saturated dispersion terms.