An Image Driven Biophysical Model of Tumor Cell Proliferation

David A. Hormuth, II¹, ², Nkiruka C. Atuegwu², Thomas E. Yankeelov¹, ²

Sequential diffusion weighted MRI (DW-MRI), dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI), and ¹⁸F-FDG-PET data of 6 Sprague-Dawley rats implanted with C6 tumors were incorporated into a mathematical model of tumor growth. Two partial differential equations describing the time dependent changes of tumor cell number and glucose concentration were initialized with imaging data. Initial tumor cell number, diffusion, and proliferation were calculated from DW-MRI data, while the initial glucose distributions were estimated from FDG-PET distributions. Delivery of glucose was estimated using DCE-MRI parameters. The calculated and experimentally estimated number of cells and tumor volume were then compared.