City Research Online

Abstract

Field cancerization is the process by which carcinogenic insults cause genetic and epigenetic alterations in the tissue field, predisposing it to cancer. Current mereological, temporally synchronic explanatory paradigms struggle to explain why the complete clearance of malignant cells in the field is so often followed by local recurrence. We argue that a more complete account requires a process-ontological framework that captures both synchronic reflexive causation across levels of organization and the diachronic constitution of tissue states by their histories. We formalize these conceptual ideas using a mathematical model that tracks the frequencies of normal and malignant cells and the levels of tissue damage, resilience, and semiotic corruption. We derive a closed-form expression for the escape crossover, which specifies the level of semiotic corruption under which malignant cells acquire a fitness advantage over normal cells. We find that the system exhibits hysteresis, thereby requiring significantly more effort to destabilize a malignant state than to maintain the system at homeostasis. We identify regions of the state space that guarantee malignant escape or containment, and demonstrate a connection between repeated injuries and chronic disease, which tilts the system's disposition towards malignancy. We show that although tissues effectively recover from acute injuries, repeated insults accumulate tissue damage, erode resilience, promote semiotic corruption, and eventually trigger malignant escape. Surgery, even if it clears all malignant cells, leaves the tissue in poor health with semiosis corrupted and leads to recurrence. On the other hand, field-directed therapies restore tissue health and semiotic integrity, leading to durable responses and tissue normalcy. These findings reframe field cancerization as an inherently multi-scale phenomenon of semiotic corruption whose present state is actively constituted by traces from the past.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2026 the Author(s), licensee AIMS Press. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Publisher Keywords:	field cancerization, evolutionary dynamics, hauntology, normativity, biosemiotics, semiotic corruption, Derrida, Canguilhem
Subjects:	Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology Q Science > QH Natural history > QH426 Genetics R Medicine > RB Pathology R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0254 Neoplasms. Tumors. Oncology (including Cancer)
Departments:	School of Science & Technology School of Science & Technology > Department of Mathematics
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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