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EFFECTS OF TUMORS ON INHALED PHARMACOLOGIC DRUGS: I. FLOW PATTTERNS
Citation:
Martonen, T B. AND X. Guan. EFFECTS OF TUMORS ON INHALED PHARMACOLOGIC DRUGS: I. FLOW PATTTERNS. CELL BIOPHYSICS AND BIOCHEMISTRY. Humana Press Incorporated, Totowa, NJ, 35(3):233-243, (2001).
Description:
ABSTRACT
Lung carcinomas are now the most common form of cancer. Clinical data suggest that tumors are found preferentially in upper airways, perhaps specifically at carina within bifurcations. The disease can be treated by aerosolized pharmacologic drugs. To enhance their efficacies site-specific drugs must be deposited selectively. Since inhaled particles are transported by air, flow patterns will naturally affect their trajectories. Therefore, in Part I of a systematic investigation we focused on tumorinduced effects on airstreams, in Part II particle trajectories were determined. To facilitate the targeted delivery of inhaled drugs, we simulated bifurcations with tumors on carina using a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package (FIDAP) with a Cray T90 supercomputer and studied effects of tumor sizes and ventilatory parameters on localized flow patterns. Critical tumor sizes existed; e.g., tumors had dominant effects when r/R 0.8 for bifurcation 3-4 and r/R >_ 0.6 for bifurcation 7-8 (r = tumor radius and R = airway radius). The findings suggest that computer modeling is a means to integrate alterations to airway structures caused by diseases into aerosol therapy protocols.