A mathematical model of absorbing Markov chains to understand the routes of metastasis

Abstract

Metastasis is a complex and multi-step stochastic process. The study of the probabilities of generating a tumor from a primary site in another organs is the aim of this work. Based on statistics of National Institute of Cancer of Argentina (INC), a characterization of the routes of metastasis for the principal organs is presented by using Absorbing Markov chains. The metastasis propagation from different primary sites towards secondary and tertiary sites is also shown, emphasizing the relation and analysis about absorbing states.