Evaluation of some mathematical models for tumor growth

Abstract

A number of mathematical models for tumor growth have been proposed in the past to increase the understanding of the tumor growth process. This study evaluates the exponential, the Gompertz, the Bertalanffy and the logistic models. The data used for the evaluation of the models consists of: the untreated primary carcinoma of the human lung, and induced sarcoma in mice. The non-linear regression method was used for the analysis of the data. The logistic equation gave the best fit in the cases of all seven patients. However, the Bertalanffy equation was the best in seven out of 10 cases of mice. The models were also judged by comparing the percentage error in predicting the volume of a tumor.