Speaker
Prof.
Heiko Rieger
(Saarbrucken)
Description
During tumor growth the regular arterio-venous blood vessel
network in normal tissue is transformed into a highly
inhomogeneous tumor specific vasculature, involving a
multitude of dynamical processes like cell proliferation,
angiogenesis, vessel regression and cell death. A general
characteristics is the compartmentalization of the tumor
into several regions differing in vessel density, diameter and
in necrosis. Prominent features are also "hot spots", which
are regions of high vascular density and increased blood
flow in the center of the tumor, and whose analysis is an
important diagnostic tool in cancer treatment. We present a
model for vascular remodeling in tumorv predicting that the
formation of hot spots correlates with local inhomogeneities
of the original arterio-venous vasculature of the healthy
tissue. Probable locations for hot spots in the late stages
of the tumor are locations of increased blood pressure
gradients. The developing tumor vasculature is
non-hierarchical but still complex displaying a fractal
geometry and algebraically decaying density distributions.
Primary author
Prof.
Heiko Rieger
(Saarbrucken)
