Here we show that the surface of human cervical epithelial cells demonstrates substantially different fractal behavior when the cell becomes cancerous. Analyzing the adhesion maps of individual cervical cells, which were obtained using the atomic force microscopy operating in the HarmoniX mode, we found that cancerous cells demonstrate simple fractal behavior, whereas normal cells can only be approximated at best as multifractal. Tested on $\sim 300$ cells collected from 12 humans, the fractal dimensionality of cancerous cells is found to be unambiguously higher than that for normal cells.

• Received 2 February 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.028101