Computational study of drug delivery in tumorous human airways

Abstract

There is increasing interest in the research of direct drug delivery in respiratory tract because of its attractiveness to produce greater therapeutic benefits for the treatment of pulmonary diseases and systemic diseases. In the present study, airway respiratory model was constructed from CT scan images. A tumour was artificially created in the trachea of the respiratory model for the CFD simulation of the aerosol-particles transport and its deposition on the tumour. The CFD simulation was carried out for three air inhalation flow rates: 20, 40 and 60 L/min, and three particle sizes of 1, 5 and 10 µm to determine the effect of these parameters on the deposition efficiency of the particles on the tumour. The results show that the maximum aerosol deposition on the tumour occurs at 60 L/min inhalation rate for 5-10 µm aerosol-particles size. The findings will be useful to maximise therapeutic benefits of respiratory drug delivery.