Mathematical Modeling of Cancer Metastasis for Optimal Treatment Strategies

Abstract

Cancer is a leading cause of death in the world and becomes clinically incurable largely due to tumor metastasis. It therefore becomes important to understand the evolution of metastasis in order to determine optimal treatment strategies and predict treatment outcomes. A stochastic mathematical model is developed to analyze metastatic dissemination and localization of metastasis from an expanding primary tumor cell population. The model is used to calculate the probability of metastasis at a given site, the expected waiting time for metastasis to first occur at one site, the expected number of metastatic sites and the expected number of metastatic cells at those sites. The model is validated by available clinical data. It allows us to determine the likelihood of metastasis of patients at diagnosis and predict the number of metastasis sites for targeted therapies.