Controlled Release of Magnetic Particles for Drug Delivery in the Human Lung

Abstract

Improving drug delivery to a specific site of body is an important issue. Magnetic drug targeting is an appropriate technique for drug delivery to a specified area. This method has been adopted in drug delivery to the lung tissues due to widespread outbreak of the lung cancer in the recent decades. Therefore, increasing the efficiency of drug delivery to the lung tissues is of paramount importance. In this article, controlled particle release from a determined area and magnetic drug targeting methods are used to deliver the drug to a tumor in the generation G2 of the human lung. Weibel model is used for modeling of the human lung airways, and particles are made of iron oxide magnetic cores and poly lactic coglycolic acid shell. Herein, two different methods of drug delivery are tested and compared. In the first method, controlled particle release in the absence of magnetic field is accomplished and in the second method, controlled particle release in the presence of magnetic field is performed for the first time. A coil is used to produce magnetic field. Comparison of the results obtained in this article with the previous results of the drug delivery to tumors by random particle release method (in the presence and absence of magnetic field) showed that controlled particle release method improves the deposition efficiency on the tumor surface and increases the efficiency from 0.09% (random particle release in the absence of magnetic field) and 5.69% (random particle release in the presence of magnetic field) for tumor with r/R = 1.5 to 87% and 100% in the controlled particle release without and with the presence of magnetic field, respectively. Consequently, the best method of drug targeting is controlled particle release in the presence of the magnetic field. Using the mentioned method, deposition efficiency reaches 100% for tumors with r/R values of 0.5, 1, and 1.5 in this article.