Phase-field model of vascular tumor growth: Three-dimensional geometry of the vascular network and integration with imaging data

Abstract

Tumors promote the growth of new capillaries through a process called angiogenesis. Blood flows through these new vessels providing cancerous cells with nutrients. However, because tumor-induced vasculature is defective, blood flow is heterogeneous both in space and time. As a result, regional hypoxia and acidosis may appear, increasing the malignancy of the tumor. In this work, we developed a three-dimensional model to address the complex interplay between angiogenesis, tumor growth, nutrient distribution and blood flow. The model emphasizes three-dimensional geometry of the vascular network and integration with in vivo imaging techniques by use of the phase-field approach. We show that our method allows computing directly on the photoacoustic imaging raw data, avoiding the mesh generation process, which is the usual bottleneck for integration of computational methods and imaging data. We present two- and three-dimensional results of the dynamics of vascular tumor growth coupled with blood flow within a time-evolving capillary network.