Morphological aspects of carcinogenesis

Ouchi, Noriyuki

Cancer, in a broad sense, is the leading cause of death for both men and women in Japan today; about 30% of people have died of cancer. It would be considered that half of the people will suffer from cancer in their lifetime. The process of carcinogenesis is considered as follows: (1) transformation of normal cell to cancer cell by acquiring mutations, (2) proliferation of cancer cells via clonal expansion, i.e. tumorigenesis, (3) tumor acquire malignancy by malignant transformation. As a mathematical expression of tumor growth process, initiation, promotion and progression (IPP) concept is used for modelling carcinogenesis. Ionizing radiation is thought to be one of the sources of IPP. In this presentation, cellular based mathematical model of tumorigenesis is shown and its dynamical aspects, especially based on morphological viewpoint are introduced.