Three Variable Cancer Angiogenesis models

Abstract

In this paper we present several mathematical models of tumor growth and angiogenesis expressed by  systems of ODE’ s encoding the most essential observations and assumptions about the complex hierarchical interactive processes of tumor neo-vascularization (angiogenesis). The simplest modeling option presented merely captures the three independent variables mentioned earlier-tumor size N, total vessel volume V and the amount of protein P. We modify this model assuming that the protein is additionally consumed by growing vessels and obtain a model with protein consumption. Next models with time-delays are introduced. To make our models more realistic, two more compartments representing more complex vascularity and protein effects are introduced.