The tumor as an organ: comprehensive spatial and temporal modeling of the tumor and its microenvironment

BACKGROUND: Research related to cancer is vast, and continues in earnest in many directions. Due to the complexity of cancer, a better understanding of tumor growth dynamics can be gleaned from a dynamic computational model. We present a comprehensive, fully executable, spatial and temporal 3D computational model of the development of a cancerous tumor together with its environment. RESULTS: The model was created using Statecharts, which were then connected to an interactive animation front-end that we developed especially for this work, making it possible to visualize on the fly the on-going events of the system’s execution, as well as the effect of various input parameters. We were thus able to gain a better understanding of, e.g., how different amounts or thresholds of oxygen and VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) affect the progression of the tumor. We found that the tumor has a critical turning point, where it either dies or recovers. If minimum conditions are met at that time, it eventually develops into a full, active, growing tumor, regardless of the actual amount; otherwise it dies. CONCLUSIONS: This brings us to the conclusion that the tumor is in fact a very robust system: changing initial values of VEGF and oxygen can increase the time it takes to become fully developed, but will not necessarily completely eliminate it. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12859-016-1168-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.