2005/02/01 by Caterina Guiot, Pier Paolo Delsanto, Guiot, Caterina +7
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · Mathematics · #Evolution and Genetic Dynamics #FOS: Biological sciences #Mathematical Biology Tumor Growth #Physiological and biochemical adaptations #Quantitative Methods (q-bio.QM) #Tissues and Organs (q-bio.TO) #q-bio.QM #q-bio.TO
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.q-bio/0502001
arxiv created 2005/02/01 · openalex publication_date 2005/02/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We have previously reported that a universal growth law, as proposed by West and collaborators for all living organisms, appears to be able to describe also the growth of tumors in vivo. In contrast to the assumption of a fixed power exponent p (assumed by West et al. to be equal to 3/4), we show in this paper the dynamic evolution of p from 2/3 to 1, using experimental data from the cancer literature and in analogy with results obtained by applying scaling laws to the study of fragmentation of solids. The dynamic behaviour of p is related to the evolution of the fractal topology of neoplastic vascular systems and might be applied for diagnostic purposes to mark the emergence of a functionally sufficient (or effective) neo-angiogenetic structure.