Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 January 2005
The physical interactions of a growing tumor mass with the host tissue (boundaryconditions) play an important role in the dynamics of the tumor andtheir comprehension is essential for designing new therapeutic tools andmethods against cancer. Starting from experiments and biologicalinformation, we focus here on the analysis of the effects of the couplingbetween the host's mechanical properties and some relevant cellular processesinvolved in the growth of multicellular tumor spheroids. The physical-mathematical modelproposed here to describe such a coupling and the respective numerical simulations, after validation through a quantitative comparison withexperimental data, will be applied to support biological hypothesespreviously formulated and to propose new themes of investigation.