Quantitative Theories of Carcinogenesis

Abstract

Various mathematical theories of the genesis of cancer are presented. They involve the transformation of a normal cell and the subsequent proliferation of the transformed cell and its descendants to form a tumor. The theories predict the rate of tumor occurrence as a function of time and of the concentrations of the agents which cause transformation or which accelerate growth. The consequences of the theories are deduced and compared with data on human cancer incidence and with data from experiments on laboratory animals. A new theory is presented which includes features of most previous theories, but which goes beyond them in being capable of describing the results of initiation-promotion experiments.