Cancer is one of the leading diseases for human mortality. Although substantial research works have been conducted to investigate the initiation and progression of
cancer disease, it is still an active debate regarding the function of mutations conferring a clone advantage and the importance of mutator phenotypes caused by the mutation of stability genes. To address this issue further, we develop a mathematical model based on the incidence data of
non-small cell lung cancer and
small cell lung cancer from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results registry in the USA. The key biological parameters have been analyzed to investigate the potential effective measures for inhibiting the risk of
lung cancer. Although the first event is the gene mutation that leads to clonal expansion of cells for
lung cancer, the simulation results show that the clonal advantage of
cancer cells alone is insufficient to cause
tumorigenesis. Our analysis suggests that mutations in genes that keep genetic stability are critical in the development of
lung cancer. This implies that mutator phenotype is an important
indicator for the diagnosis of
lung cancer, which can enable early detection and treatment to reduce the risk of
lung cancer effectively. Furthermore, the parameter analysis indicates that it would be highly effective to control the risk of
lung cancer by inhibiting the transformation rate from the normal cells to mutated cells and the clonal expansion of cells with fewer gene mutations.