Thermodynamics and cancer stationary states

•Cancer is an open complex dynamic and self-organizing system.•Irreversibility is the fundamental quantity for the analysis of the open systems.•The entropy generation describes the irreversibility of the open systems.•Entropy generation is introduced in the cancer analysis.

Cancer can be described as an open complex dynamic and self-organizing system. The stationary states of the open systems are analysed in engineering thermodynamics by entropy generation. The recent results on entropy generation are suggested as the basis of a new approach to cancer analysis in order to study the cancer evolution and new possible anticancer therapies.