Investigating the impact of adipose derived media on ovarian cancer: Insights from a 3D in-silico model.

Ovarian cancer is responsible for the most deaths of all gynaecological cancers in the Western world [1]. The symptoms of ovarian cancer are typically subtle and similar to those associated with other diseases found more prevalently in the population, frequently resulting in late diagnoses and advanced tumour stages upon treatment initiation [2]. While surgery and platinum-based treatments can be curative, ovarian cancers found at the latter, metastasised stages are likely to be recurrent and more tailored towards palliative care [3]. Metastasised ovarian cancer spreads to surrounding organs and tissues such as the greater omentum [4], a large fat pad composed of adipose tissue stretching from the stomach and hanging over the intestines. The location of this is key in its role towards ovarian cancer and its progression [5]. In this study, we develop a mathematical model to investigate the role that adipocytes found in adipose tissue can have in ovarian cancer progression. Observations of biological experiments from two ovarian cancer cell lines [6] create foundations to build a multiscale agent-based model in a Physicell framework [7]. The impact of the adipose derived media concentration, treatment dosage, and initial tumour size are explored to find how these conditions affect the spatio-temporal dynamics of cancer tumours.