Scientists reveal the physical properties behind tumor growth!

January 30, 2021 // -- A recent study published in the international magazine Biosystems entitled "Cell and extracellular matrix matrix theory and its ideas for tumorigenesis", from Duke Scientists at universities and other institutions have developed a new strategy to predict tumor growth; instead of focusing on the biological mechanisms of cell growth, researchers are using thermodynamics and the physical space of tumor expansion to predict the process of metastatic lumps from individual cells. Ehsan Samei, a
researcher, says that when scientists first think about cancer, they think about biological properties, which tend to ignore the physical properties of cancer cell growth patterns, and how tumors interact with their surrounding tissues and provide nutrients to their cells, an area that has not been well studied so far.
the theory put forward by the researchers uses the basic concepts of natural system growth and recombining itself to obtain the maximum flow system, which not only explains the mechanism by which this growth occurs, but also why it must occur.
The latest study is based on the tectonic law written by researcher Bejan in 1996, which states that for a system to survive, it must evolve to increase the channels through which it flows; In the
study, researcher Bejan et al. revealed how tumor growth and internal recombination during growth are directly linked to the pipelines they need to create more flowing nutrients and remove waste, using these ideas to predict the function of cell cluster growth as a structure, as well as the size of key clusters that mark a different configuration transition to the next configuration.
Photo Source: Duke University School of Nursing To validate this theory, the researchers compared their predictions with the results of several independent cancer and non-cancerous tumor growth patterns, which provided a unified perspective on the growth of cell clusters at the smallest scale and the large-scale dynamics of proliferating cells described in the phenomena model.
As the tumor grows, the flow system becomes large enough to produce visible currents through the vascularization of the tumor, the theory that reveals the physics behind such dramatic shifts and can predict when they will occur.
For the past 15 years, researcher Samei has been studying detailed models of patient computationality to test new interventions and medical procedures through so-called virtual clinical trials that simulate patients and procedures for medical evaluation, and with the advent of new tumor growth theories, researchers have been able to successfully create dynamic, growing tumor models without opening up new avenues for cancer research.
Researchers are now producing images of tumor growth from the new models they have developed and comparing them with real images from the patient's body, as well as testing whether radiologists can observe the differences, and so far the results are promising.
Finally, the researchers say the model may not be realistic if the tumor doesn't grow, and we hope the platform will help accurately simulate tumor growth to answer the very real question of how often patients typically need an imaging to determine if the cancer is growing or has shrunk.
() References: T.J. Sauer, E.Samei, A.Bejan. Cell and extracellular matrix growth theory and its implications for tumorigenesis, Biosystems (2021). DOI： 10.1016/j.biosystems.2020.104331【2】The physics behind tumor growthby Ken Kingery, Duke University School of Nursing