A cancer model for the angiogenic switch

• A 4D dynamical model for a single tumor site.
• A novel model for describing the angiogenic switch.
• Describing interactions between endothelial, host, immune and tumor cells.
• Relating sensitivity to initial conditions of tumor growth to parameter values.

The occurrence of metastasis is an important feature in cancer development. In order to have a one-site model taking into account the interactions between host, effector immune and tumor cells which is not only valid for the early stages of tumor growth, we developed in this paper a new model where are incorporated interactions of these three cell populations with endothelial cells. These latter cells are responsible for the neo-vascularization of the tumor site which allows the migration of tumor cells to distant sites. It is then shown that, for some parameter values, the resulting model for the four cell populations reproduces the angiogenic switch, that is, the transition from avascular to vascular tumor.