Simulation of 3D tumor cell growth using nonlinear finite element method

Abstract

We propose a novel parallel computing framework for a nonlinear finite element method (FEM)-based cell model and apply it to simulate avascular tumor growth. We derive computation formulas to simplify the simulation and design the basic algorithms. With the increment of the proliferation generations of tumor cells, the FEM elements may become larger and more distorted. Then, we describe a remesh and refinement processing of the distorted or over large finite elements and the parallel implementation based on Message Passing Interface to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the simulation. We demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the FEM model and the parallelization methods in simulations of early tumor growth.

Keywords:

• Avascular tumor growth
• finite element method
• parallel computing

Conflict of interest disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 61070092].