Administration of aerosolized drugs to infants by a hood: a three-dimensional numerical study.

Abstract

Using a hood for aerosol delivery to infants was found to be effective and user-friendly compared to the commonly used face mask. The currently available hood design has an even greater potential in terms of efficiency, and a numerical simulation can serve as a tool for its optimization. The present study describes the development and utilization of a numerical simulation for studying the transport and fate of the aerosol particles and the carrier gas within a three-dimensional realistic representation of the hood and the infant's head. The study further incorporates realistic breathing patterns, with a longer expiration phase than an inspiration phase. Both nose and mouth breathing are simulated. While the base case assumes that the funnel that delivers the aerosol within the hood is perpendicular to the infant's face, more realistic scenarios include a funnel that is slanted with respect to the infant face, the infant's head taking a general position with respect to the funnel, and the funnel and the head being both tilted. A good agreement is found between computation and experimental results. As expected, the most efficient drug delivery, 18%, is achieved when the funnel is normal to the infant's face. The quantitative evaluation of different scenarios presented in this work increases the knowledge of physicians, nurses, and parents regarding the efficacy of the treatment, in terms of the actual amount of drug inhaled under various modes of function of the device.