From population dynamics to modelling the competition between tumors and immune system (Q1921082)

This paper deals with a kinetic modelling procedure for describing, at a cellular level, the competition between a tumor and the immune system. The traditional approach in modelling tumor dynamics uses methodologies of continuum mechanics, which is based upon convection-diffusion equations, which may also involve moving boundary effects and the influence of source terms. As usual, it is possible to derive, from the partial differential equations, simplified dynamical systems in order to obtain immediate information on the qualitative behaviour of the system. However, although continuous models can provide important contributions to the prediction of tumor behaviour, it is recognized that the interactions between tumor cells and host environment occur at the cellular level. The first part of this paper deals with mathematical aspects, modelling, and qualitative analysis. Then, specific applications aimed to model the dynamical evolution of a tumor follow. The contents are organized in five sections. After the Introduction, Section 2 deals with the presentation and discussion of some models of interacting populations. These models do not specifically refer to the interactions between tumor cells and immune system, but represent the conceptual basis for the third section which more specifically refers to the investigation of problems in immunology and deals with the analysis of the dynamics of tumor growth or depletion in competition with the immune system. The result is obtained by regarding the individuals of each population as cells, and by specializing the various interacting cell populations and the dynamics of the cell interactions. Finally, the fourth section deals with the analysis of the qualitative behaviour of the solutions to the Cauchy problem in Banach spaces and with a mathematical method to obtain quantitative simulations.