Analysis of the fluctuations of the tumour/host interface

Edoardo Milotti, Vladislav Vyshemirsky, Sabrina Stella, Federico Dogo and Roberto Chignola

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2017, vol. 486, issue C, 587-594

Abstract: In a recent analysis of metabolic scaling in solid tumours we found a scaling law that interpolates between the power laws μ∝V and μ∝V2∕3, where μ is the metabolic rate expressed as the glucose absorption rate and V is the tumour volume. The scaling law fits quite well both in vitro and in vivo data, however we also observed marked fluctuations that are associated with the specific biological properties of individual tumours. Here we analyse these fluctuations, in an attempt to find the population-wide distribution of an important parameter (A) which expresses the total extent of the interface between the solid tumour and the non-cancerous environment. Heuristic considerations suggest that the values of the A parameter follow a lognormal distribution, and, allowing for the large uncertainties of the experimental data, our statistical analysis confirms this.

Keywords: Fluctuations in biological systems; Scaling laws; Lognormal distribution; Cancer metabolism; Cancer growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:486:y:2017:i:c:p:587-594

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2017.06.005

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