Well, you must ask, from time to time, the reason why we have not yet been able to eradicate cancer, why are we moving so slowly in the face of this monster that is only getting more widespread among humans? For example, James Allison and Tsuko Hongo were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine last year for their creation of anti-cancer treatments, but the success rate for these treatments is only about 40%!
The answer to this question lies primarily in what the term "cancer" means. Of course we know that the main root of cancerous processes is the failure of the "programmed cell death" mechanism from working, so the cells begin to grow in a steady form and do not prevent themselves from this, but the problem that many do not understand is that cancer develops differently in the same tissue and in different tissues, what It makes each type a specific disease.
Therefore, cancer is the definition of a whole group of diseases that branch out, complicate, and develop strongly, on the other hand, each type of cancer is more like a special case, and the more the cancer develops more and more new changes occur that differ from one case to another, and for this reason you may find that one treatment He may not be able to treat all conditions, as the tumor of each is different in some ways. Here a very striking new branch appears that tries to simplify all that complexity and relate it to one another, it is Mathematical Oncology.
It started in the 1960s (1) of the last century when mathematical models were used to predict the risk criteria for cancer. For example, criteria such as age and certain behaviors such as smoking and genetics can predict high rates of lung cancer incidence. These models are based on predictions about the nature of cancer cell growth with simple patterns starting from one cell.
But to understand the depth of the need for mathematics in the study of contemporary cancer, we can start from a simple example: we have two wild assemblies, one for black and another for buffalo, there is a relationship between them that depends on the consumption of the first for the second, black for example with very few numbers, and wild buffalo with large numbers, allows This gives the black an opportunity for better and easier food, and thus reproduction. As the number of blacks increases, the number of buffalo decreases, then the opposite occurs again, so the black decreases due to lack of resources, and in return the number of buffalo increases again, and so on. In addition, with time, both communities develop tools to protect their interests, and that relationship changes with the change of the environment as well. You may give either of them a priority over the other, for example the lion may become faster or the buffalo may become more able to hide, in the biology of the biomass there. Mathematical equations This relationship is carefully studied by "Lotka – Volterra equations".
Now let's consider the relationship between the immune system and cancer from this point of view “called the ecological view of cancer,” according to Irina Karifa in her book (2) “Understanding Cancer from the Viewpoint of Biological Systems Science.” The former chases the other with similar laws, and can We can find a better treatment for some types of cancer by understanding the nature of competition between each of them for the available food, and a wide area of research indicates that working on the cancer environment, not the cancer itself, may be a good opportunity to get rid of it.
A research team from Cornell University (3) provides straight lines to understand the nature of competition between cancer cells themselves for food. This happened by the team applying mathematical mechanisms from "Game Theory". The team studied the competition between three types of cancer cells Lung to find that each other’s choices depend on the other when it comes to using oxygen.
It is similar to advertising a game of "stone, paper, scissors" among a million people on the Internet. In the first round, a larger part of the participants, for example, tends to choose stone, while the other side will tend to choose paper that can defeat the stone, in Round 2: More participants will tend to choose scissors to defeat the previous paper, but that will bring us back again to choose stone - in the third round - because it defeats scissors.
According to the study, these three types of cancer cells use a similar mechanism in dealing with oxygen, and through understanding these cycles of decisions, with respect to cancer cells, researchers can develop non-dense treatment regimens that target the winning group in the current competitive game, and then target the next group in Later on, this will reduce the impact of chemotherapy on the patient because we will be more specific and not give all drugs - for all types of cells - at once.