Modeling Superparamagnetic Particles in Blood Flow for Applications in Magnetic Drug Targeting

Iris Rukshin,Josef Mohrenweiser,Shahriar Afkhami,Pengtao Yue

doi:10.3390/fluids2020029

Iris Rukshin, Josef Mohrenweiser + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/fluids2020029

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Magnetic drug targeting is a technique that involves the binding of medicine to magnetizable particles to allow for more specific transport to the target location. This has recently come to light as a method of drug delivery that reduces the disadvantages of conventional, systemic treatments. This study developed a mathematical model for tracking individual superparamagnetic nanoparticles in blood flow in the presence of an externally applied magnetic field. The model considers the magnetic attraction between the particles and the external magnet, influence of power law flow, diffusive interaction between the particles and blood, and random collisions with red blood cells. A stochastic system of differential equations is presented and solved numerically to simulate the paths taken by particles in a blood vessel. This study specifically focused on localized cancer treatment, in which a surface tumor is accessed through smaller blood vessels, which are more conducive to this delivery method due to slower flow velocities and smaller diameters. The probability of the particles reaching the tumor location is found to be directly dependent on ambient factors; thus, diffusion through Brownian motion and red blood cell collisions, different magnetic field and force models, blood viscosities, and release points are considered.

Highlights

Traditional drug delivery methods involve the intravenous injection of drugs, which travel through the circulatory system until they are distributed throughout the body
In order to account for the variability of blood viscosity, several models are incorporated to examine the effect of altering viscosity on the effectiveness of the drug delivery: power-law, Cherry, Carreau, and constant viscosity models
The governing equations are modeled to visualize particle trajectories and compute capture rates in an attempt to evaluate the impact of various physical conditions on the success of magnetic drug targeting

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Introduction

Traditional drug delivery methods involve the intravenous injection of drugs, which travel through the circulatory system until they are distributed throughout the body. The toxicity and negative effects of the medication affect the whole body instead of being localized to the target region. These disadvantages are relevant to drastic drug therapy and recent interest and development in cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and IL-2 (interleukin-2). In response to these issues, renewed efforts in the research and development of this technology have yielded several new methods of drug delivery, namely, magnetic drug targeting, which involves the binding of drugs to magnetic particles that allow the drug to be guided to the area of interest using an external magnetic field. There have been numerous promising trials [1,2] and models of the behavior of ferrofluids intended for applications in retinal detachment restoration [3,4,5], magnetic separation for fluid filtering [6,7], drug therapy for in-stent restenosis [8], and localized cancer treatment [9,10,11,12,13,14]

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