Gompertzian growth as a consequence of tumor heterogeneity (Q759669)

A model which relates the growth of tumors to the degree of their cellular heterogeneity is proposed. The growth rate here is proportional to the logarithm of the number of combinations of cellular states. In this context, cellular anaplasia is quantitated by free information, while cellular differentiation is quantitated by bound information. Two cases are examined: (1) when a tumor's cells do not interact with each other, the tumor's growth is exponential; (2) when the number of combinations of states is inversely proportional to the total number of intercellular interactions, a tumor's growth is Gompertzian.