A three-dimensional cellular automaton designed for simulating tumor growth

This paper constructs a tumor growth model (TGM) based on three-dimensional cellular automaton. The cells of the TGM are divided into normal cells and abnormal cells by their state values. The abnormal cells mean tumor cells and divided into proliferative cells, nonproliferative cells and necrotic cells by their state values. The TGM unifies the evolution rules of the normal cells and abnormal cells including proliferative and nonproliferative cells and necrotic cells. The cells and its neighborhoods and evolution rules of the TGM completely abide by the design principle of standard cellular automata so that virtual experiment and analysis on the TGM can be carried out with the unified theoretical frame of cellular automata.