A sharp-front moving boundary model for malignant invasion

Abstract

We analyse a novel mathematical model of malignant invasion which takes the form of a two-phase moving boundary problem describing the invasion of a population of malignant cells into a population of background tissue, such as skin. Cells in both populations undergo diffusive migration and logistic proliferation. The interface between the two populations moves according to a two-phase Stefan condition. Unlike many reaction–diffusion models of malignant invasion, the moving boundary model explicitly describes the motion of the sharp front between the cancer and surrounding tissues without needing to introduce degenerate nonlinear diffusion. Numerical simulations suggest the model gives rise to very interesting travelling wave solutions that move with speed c, and the model supports both malignant invasion and malignant retreat, where the travelling wave can move in either the positive or negative x-directions. Unlike the well-studied Fisher–Kolmogorov and Porous-Fisher models where travelling waves move with a minimum wave speed c≥c∗>0, the moving boundary model leads to travelling wave solutions with |c|<c∗∗. We interpret these travelling wave solutions in the phase plane and show that they are associated with several features of the classical Fisher–Kolmogorov phase plane that are often disregarded as being nonphysical. We show, numerically, that the phase plane analysis compares well with long time solutions from the full partial differential equation model as well as providing accurate perturbation approximations for the shape of the travelling waves.