The method of characteristics applied to a stochastic two-stage model of carcinogenesis (Q1368524)

Stochastic two-stage models of carcinogenesis which have been considered over the last three decades have involved birth-death processes. The two-stage models for carcinogenesis involve a transition from normal cells to intermediate cells and a transition from intermediate cells to malignant cells. The transition from normal cells to intermediate cells has been described as either deterministic or stochastic. The transition from intermediate cells to malignant cells is assumed to be stochastic. We refer to these two models as deterministic-stochastic and fully stochastic. In Section 2, we present a brief derivation of the infinite system of ordinary differential equations, the Kolmogorov equations, which describes the fully stochastic model. We introduce the probability generating function and then derive the partial differential equation which the generating function satisfies. The solution technique which we use is the method of characteristics. We used the method of characteristics of \textit{D. W. Quinn} [Risk Analysis 9, 407-413 (1989)]; however, because the application of the method to the equations of the fully stochastic model is different than that of Quinn, we describe the method of characteristics briefly in Section 3. In Section 4, we present our implementation of the method of characteristics for the partial differential equation which arises in the fully stochastic model. Our method can handle time varying coefficients or parameters, so we can solve the most general types of problems in stochastic risk assessment. In Section 5, we present our results.