A growth model for primary cancer

One of the most aggressive phenomena in biology is the growth of cancer cel ls. In this paper we propose a simple model to simulate the growth of carci noma "in situ", which includes cell proliferation, motility and death, as w ell as the reciprocal influence among cells. Every simulated growth pattern is characterized by its gyration radius, surface roughness, number of cell s on tumour periphery and fractal dimension. Our results indicate that the patterns are compact, with gyration radius, surface roughness and number of peripherical cells scaling, in the asymptotic limit, as a square root of t he total number of tumour cells. Also, a preliminary comparison between the simulated patterns and explants of primary tumours is done. (C) 1998 Elsev ier Science B.V. All rights reserved.