Is cancer a pure growth curve or does it follow a kinetics of dynamical structural transformation?

BACKGROUND: Unperturbed tumor growth kinetics is one of the more studied cancer topics; however, it is poorly understood. Mathematical modeling is a useful tool to elucidate new mechanisms involved in tumor growth kinetics, which can be relevant to understand cancer genesis and select the most suitable treatment. METHODS: The classical Kolmogorov-Johnson-Mehl-Avrami as well as the modified Kolmogorov-Johnson-Mehl-Avrami models to describe unperturbed fibrosarcoma Sa-37 tumor growth are used and compared with the Gompertz modified and Logistic models. Viable tumor cells (1×10(5)) are inoculated to 28 BALB/c male mice. RESULTS: Modified Gompertz, Logistic, Kolmogorov-Johnson-Mehl-Avrami classical and modified Kolmogorov-Johnson-Mehl-Avrami models fit well to the experimental data and agree with one another. A jump in the time behaviors of the instantaneous slopes of classical and modified Kolmogorov-Johnson-Mehl-Avrami models and high values of these instantaneous slopes at very early stages of tumor growth kinetics are observed. CONCLUSIONS: The modified Kolmogorov-Johnson-Mehl-Avrami equation can be used to describe unperturbed fibrosarcoma Sa-37 tumor growth. It reveals that diffusion-controlled nucleation/growth and impingement mechanisms are involved in tumor growth kinetics. On the other hand, tumor development kinetics reveals dynamical structural transformations rather than a pure growth curve. Tumor fractal property prevails during entire TGK.