Life Sciences Commons^™

Analysis Of Gompertzian Growth In Aggregating Multicellular Tumor Nodules, Gwendolyn A. Deger

Graduate Masters Theses

Past studies have shown that tumor growth generally follows an exponential growth function or, with a limiting growth constraint, the sigmoid Gompertzian function, where a terminal tumor size is reached at late times. The classical Gompertzian description of tumor growth applies in the case of two-dimensional (2D) in vitro cell studies due to the effect of physical limitations on possible growth area. This project asked whether Gompertzian form applies to the in vitro growth of multifocal 3D tumor nodules, whose size is determined by aggregation events as well as cell proliferation. Previous reports have indicated that these three-dimensional (3D) spheroids …