Mathematical modelling of glioma growth: The use of Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) data to predict the anisotropic pathways of cancer invasion

作者：Painter K J^*; Hillen T

来源：Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2013, 323: 25-39.

DOI：10.1016/j.jtbi.2013.01.014

• Tumour invasion
• Anisotropic diffusion
• Multiscale modelling
• Diffusion tensor imaging

The nonuniform growth of certain forms of cancer can present significant complications for their treatment, a particularly acute problem in gliomas. A number of experimental results have suggested that invasion is facilitated by the directed movement of cells along the aligned neural fibre tracts that form a large component of the white matter. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) provides a window for visualising this anisotropy and gaining insight on the potential invasive pathways. In this paper we develop a mesoscopic model for glioma invasion based on the individual migration pathways of invading cells along the fibre tracts. Via scaling we obtain a macroscopic model that allows us to explore the overall growth of a tumour. To connect DTI data to parameters in the macroscopic model we assume that directional guidance along fibre tracts is described by a bimodal von Mises-Fisher distribution (a normal distribution on a unit sphere) and parametrised according to the directionality and degree of anisotropy in the diffusion tensors. We demonstrate the results in a simple model for glioma growth, exploiting both synthetic and genuine DTI datasets to reveal the potentially crucial role of anisotropic structure on invasion.

• 出版日期2013-4-21