Using Ordinary Differential Equations to Explore Cancer-Immune Dynamics and Tumor Dormancy

Abstract

Cancer is not solely a disease of the genome, but is a systemic disease that affects the host on many functional levels, including, and perhaps most notably, the function of the immune response, resulting in both tumor-promoting inflammation and tumor-inhibiting cytotoxic action. The dichotomous actions of the immune response induce significant variations in tumor growth dynamics that mathematical modeling can help to understand. Here we present a general method using ordinary differential equations (ODEs) to model and analyze cancer-immune interactions, and in particular, immune-induced tumor dormancy.