Cancer differentiation therapy dynamics in a hybrid model of avascular tumor growth

Borràs Sánchez, Marc

Cancer differentiation therapy dynamics in a hybrid model of avascular tumor growth

Citation

Borràs Sánchez, M. Cancer differentiation therapy dynamics in a hybrid model of avascular tumor growth. 2022. handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54698

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Abstract

Cancer is not one disease but many, making it very difficult to successfully develop treatments that effectively end it. Yet, a very promising approach still underde- veloped is differentiation therapy (DTH). As it has long been demonstrated, most tumors are conformed by a cell population a great part of which is poorly differ- entiated, exhibiting a loss of communication and tissue homeostasis among other things. As a result, they can achieve several hallmarks essential to their identity and chances of success. DTH has been proposed to be an efficient therapy and can be combined with cytotoxic-based therapies, and successfully used as a treatment for acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). However, DTH has failed so far when deal- ing with solid tumors. Why? It has been suggested that the high degree of spatial intra-tumoral heterogeneity combined with the resilience of CSCs and their capa- bility to repopulate tumors by themselves might act as a firewall to DTH drugs. In order to test this possibility and assess the effects of DTH on solid tumors, we pro- pose a mathematical and computational study of DTH using a spatially extended avascular tumor model. The results obtained support the previous hypothesis and indirect evidence concerning the role of space and cancer tissue architecture.