The Complex Dynamics of Breast Cancer

Despite years of intensive investigation that has been made in understanding women's susceptibility to breast cancer, it remains a major cause of death worldwide. In mathematical terms, breast cancer can be outlined as a non-linear system that advances in time and in space through different states and a number of transitions from one state to another over a certain time interval. Breast cancer emerges from multiple spontaneous and/or inherited alterations that induce changes in expression patterns of genes and proteins that function in complex networks controlling critical cellular events. Here, we discuss breast cancer as a dynamical disease using the basic principles of the mathematics of non-linear systems and chaos theory. Additionally, some of the critical concepts necessary to give meaning to its underlying physical complexity are introduced. This way of thinking may help to clarify concepts, indicate alternative experiments and categorie the actual knowledge.