Biological parameters for lung cancer in mathematical models of carcinogenesis.

Abstract

Applications of the two-step model of carcinogenesis with clonal expansion (TSCE) to lung cancer data are reviewed, including those on atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. British doctors, Colorado Plateau miners and Chinese tin miners. Different sets of identifiable model parameters are used in the literature. The parameter set which could be determined with the lowest uncertainty consists of the net proliferation rate gamma of intermediate cells, the hazard h55 at an intermediate age and the hazard h(infinity) at an asymptotically large age. Also, the values of these three parameters obtained in the various studies are more consistent than other identifiable combinations of the biological parameters. Based on representative results for these three parameters, implications for the biological parameters in the TSCE model are derived.