A DCE-MRI imaging-based model for simulation of vascular tumour growth.

Imaging-based modelling of tumour growth can serve as a powerful tool to understand and predict tumour evolution and its response to therapy. The purpose of this study was to introduce, calibrate and evaluate a multi-scale model of vascular tumour growth. The model allows for proliferation, death and spatial spread of tumour cells as well as for new vessel creation. Both the calibration and the evaluation of the tumour growth model were performed using pre-clinical longitudinal time series of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging of colon carcinoma. Tumour specific model parameters, extracted from the images at two subsequent time points, were included into the model to predict the spatio-temporal evolution of the tumour at a third point in time. Simulation results for three pre-clinical cases demonstrated the model's ability to simulate the cellular as well as the 2D evolution of the tumour.