Welcome to Fractal Forums

People are realizing more and more that the progression of many diseases have fractal characteristics.  I found some old papers about fractal geometry and cancer research that I thought some people may find interesting, so I will share them with you.

http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/60/14/3683.full.pdf
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/patt-sol/pdf/9506/9506003v1.pdf

Do you think that one could get a job in a hospital that specializes in cancer research as a fractal geometrist [if that is a word]?

Does anyone else have any [more recent] information on fractals in medicine

I have been doing a lttle reading (in my introducing fractals guide.)  Problem is the book was published in 2000; same as your links.  WBT provide more info than the section in nmy book.   Interesting that fractal geometry will show roughness & iregularities; which are what will show up with medical issues.  Virus' & bacteria are fractal.  Cancer cells are fractal too.

Opportunities in medicine as a"fractal Geometrist"  no clue. 

Yes.




Best Regards.
Leonid Levin.

I just wanted to thank you for these articles!  My friend has cancer and he wants to learn all about it as he can.

I swear down I never read this thread before I posted about fractal virus - how crazy!!

Do they know that the sars-virus is really a mandelbulb hybrid?
(Image from the Swedish national encyclopedia)
(http://www.ne.se/neimage/651537.jpg)

Source:
http://www.ne.se/lang/sars/586787

And I didn't read your post before posting the image of sars, belongs in your thread maybe...  :alien:

A former employer of mine uses results from fractal geometry to accurately predict blood flow in human livers. Image acquisition through computer tomography or magneto resonance tomography cannot resolve the smallest and thinnest branches of blood vessels. But fractal geometry can quite reliably infer overall blood flow from just the first few thickest branches.

These predictions are then used in operation planning of liver transplants from living donors. It is crucial that both parts of the liver contain complete vessel subtrees, and that every last bit of tissue is being fed. Such crucial cuts were a black art that only a very small number of doctors could make, because they basically had to do it blindfolded. Now fractal geometry is illuminating the darkness, and enables many more surgeons to perform that kind of surgery reliably and successfully.

(Clarification: the respective software is not available as standalone product. My former employer offers these things as a service. The input imagery usually requires some careful preprocessing, and the algorithm itself needs to be tuned a bit for every single case. Then our M.D. would sanity check the results, and work with the client surgeon to arrive at a viable operation plan.)

did you know that pacemakers also use chaos theory? it is written in james gleicks "chaos" book, the human heart has to beat in an irregular manner, if it is becoming to regular, the pacemakers does its work ;)

I was aware about the irregularities in heart beats.  It was mentioned in a small book I read a few years ago.

I really think there will be opportunities for fractal specialists in the medical field soon.