Mimicking cancer therapy in an agent-based model: The case of hepatoblastoma

Background and Objective: Hepatoblastoma is the most common pediatric liver cancer and represents a serious clinical challenge as no effective therapies have yet been found for advanced states and relapses of the disease. Methods: In this work, we use a well-established agent-based model of the immune response now equipped with anti-cancer therapy response to study the evolution of the disease and the role of the immune system in its containment. Results: We simulate the course of hepatoblastoma over three years in a population of virtual patients, successfully mimicking clinical mortality and symptom onset rates, as well as observations on the main tumor transcriptomic subtypes. Conclusions: The capacity of the introduced framework to reproduce clinical data and the heterogeneity of hepatoblastoma, combined with the possibility of observing the dynamics of cellular entities at the microscopic scale and the key chemical signals involved in disease progression, makes the model a promising resource for future research on in silico trials.