The Risk Function of Breast and Ovarian Cancers in the Avrami-Dobrzyński Cellular Phase-Transition Model

Int J Mol Sci. 2024 Jan 22;25(2):1352. doi: 10.3390/ijms25021352.

Abstract

Specifying the role of genetic mutations in cancer development is crucial for effective screening or targeted treatments for people with hereditary cancer predispositions. Our goal here is to find the relationship between a number of cancerogenic mutations and the probability of cancer induction over the lifetime of cancer patients. We believe that the Avrami-Dobrzyński biophysical model can be used to describe this mechanism. Therefore, clinical data from breast and ovarian cancer patients were used to validate this model of cancer induction, which is based on a purely physical concept of the phase-transition process with an analogy to the neoplastic transformation. The obtained values of model parameters established using clinical data confirm the hypothesis that the carcinogenic process strongly follows fractal dynamics. We found that the model's theoretical prediction and population clinical data slightly differed for patients with the age below 30 years old, and that might point to the existence of an ancillary protection mechanism against cancer development. Additionally, we reveal that the existing clinical data predict breast or ovarian cancers onset two years earlier for patients with BRCA1/2 mutations.

Keywords: Avrami equation; breast cancer; cancer; cancer physics; carcinogenesis; fractal; neoplastic transformation; ovary cancer; phase transition.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • BRCA1 Protein / genetics
  • BRCA2 Protein / genetics
  • Breast Neoplasms* / genetics
  • Female
  • Genetic Predisposition to Disease
  • Humans
  • Mutation
  • Ovarian Neoplasms* / epidemiology
  • Ovarian Neoplasms* / genetics

Substances

  • BRCA1 protein, human
  • BRCA1 Protein
  • BRCA2 protein, human
  • BRCA2 Protein

Grants and funding

The APC was funded by the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, Poland.